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Click on the picture to watch an audio slideshow of Þorrablót, an Icelandic mid-winter feast. In the past there was no fresh food available at this time of year so people ate dried fish, smoked lamb, putrefied shark and soured blood and liver pudding along with other soured meat products—ram testicles included.
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Fjallabyggd (“Mountain Settlement”) is a skier’s dream. Its slopes are perfect for slaloming and there are also tracks for telemark skiing. Winter sporting enthusiasts can also go ice skating or rent snowmobiles. In summer, Fjallabyggd turns into a paradise for hikers. Read this special promotion about one of Iceland’s best hidden gems.
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Shooting of the large-scale film production Prometheus by English director Ridley Scott, starring Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Michael Fassbender and Noomie Rapace, among others, began at the foot of Hekla volcano in south Iceland yesterday.
Hekla. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.
“If you’re afraid of the forces of nature in this business you should find something else to do,” Scott commented at a press conference in Reykjavík on Sunday, when asked whether he wasn’t concerned Hekla might start to erupt; some unusual activity was recorded in the volcano recently, Fréttabladid reports.
The shooting in Iceland will take two weeks and will also take the crew to other scenic locations in the country, such as the waterfall Dettifoss in north Iceland, which is the most powerful waterfall in Europe.
Scott confirmed Icelandic landscapes will play a big part in the movie. “It will be 15 minutes overall if everything goes according to plan. We are filming the origins of time.”
Secrecy will be maintained throughout the shooting. “There will be a lot of original and new material in the movie and it would be a shame to ruin it with leaks,” the director said.
Iceland was determined as a shooting location rather late in the process. “You can find similar landscapes in other places in the world. But here it is so primitive and jura-like and that had the decisive impact. Iceland is an extremely beautiful country,” Scott commented.
Around 160 Icelanders will participate in the project along with more than 200 foreign filmmakers, which Scott referred to as a “small film crew.”
Prometheus is estimated to cost ISK hundreds of millions (ISK 100 million = USD 850,000, EUR 600,000).
Click here to read more about the shooting in Iceland and here to read more about the recent activity in Hekla.
ESA
A Playboy model, Progressive Party in trouble and a bad hair day.
Seven companies have asked to be listed on the NASDAQ OMX in Reykjavík, in one of the biggest privatization plans in the country’s history. All seven companies are owned, at least in part, by Landsbanki Íslands, which the Government of Iceland owns 81 percent.
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Landsvirkjun accounts for 75 percent of total electricity production in Iceland; in the year 2010 production reached 12,625 GWh. Climate change and the resulting increase in temperatures are expected to lead to a significant increase in the flow of glacial rivers in the years to come.
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The Special Prosecutors’ Office has filed charges in the so-called Al-Thani case, which pertains to the purchase of a five percent share in Kaupthing Bank in late September 2008, merely two weeks before the banking system’s collapse.
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The current issue of the quarterly magazine Iceland Review includes for example an interview with world-renowned fashion designer Steinunn Sigurðardóttir as well as features on the successful biotech company ORF Genetics and the hot debate regarding the EU. If you subscribe now, you will receive a photo book by IR editor, photographer Páll Stefánsson of the eruptions in Eyjafjallajökull as a gift. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and here to buy a gift subscription.
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REVIEWS
The second series of The Press continues to follow the life of journalist, mother and wife Lára and her investigation of Iceland’s underground world.
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Harvesting human-like protein from genetically modified barley, Icelandic company ORF Genetics is revolutionizing the world of green biotechnology. With Iceland’s First Lady Dorrit Moussaieff and Hollywood stars among its loyal fans, the company’s phenomenal skincare range has, quite literally, changed the face of the cosmetics industry.
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The international recognition that the architecture firm Snøhetta has received is quite unique in a Norwegian context.
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