Pulp Features

Bjarni Gautur is the founder of Icelandic production company, IBS Entertainment. A big fan of animated TV in his youth, Bjarni started his entertaiment career young with comics he, his brother and others would make and sell on the streets of Goteborg. This continued until he moved to Iceland where his appreciation of films – and espcially horror films – started to develop.

In 2000, Bjarni directed his first feature – a 60 minute horror comedy which was released direct to Video to much popular acclaim. Today he is still making movies, music, comics and more and has taken some time out to talk to Dale Pierce about the joys and difficulties of filmmaking in Iceland.

Dale: First off, how do you pronounce your name?
Bjarni: It’s pretty hard to pronounce the Icelandic version of the name, but when talking to people outside of Iceland, It’s usually Barney only with the Jay added in like Björk, Bjarney and Gautur is a little bit like Kayter I guess.

Dale: You are an indie horror producer out of Iceland. What are some of your projects?
Bjarni: My projects include Knight of the Living Dead, Havoc: Resurrection, Lost Soul and The Idol Massacre. The films aren’t known that much outside of Iceland but our new horror comedy film The Breeding will get more screenings outside of Iceland and probably even distributed in the US.

Dale: Do you have webpages for these films?
Bjarni: Yes. There is the official website: ibs-entertainment.com and you can check out our MySpace sites: ibs_entertainment (My Site with everything new about me!) morbidchid (My Vulgar yet funny band!) and thebreeding (our all new movie!)

Dale: You have just put the finishing touches on this latest project of yours. How do you anticipate reaction to it will be?
Bjarni: Our new film Knight of the Living Dead (which will be released on DVD by Necroscopic Unlimited) might get a lot of different reactions. The film was made when we were 16 during the summer of 2005 so the production value is not great, people looking for a masterpiece of filmmaking and art might be disappointed, but people who are looking for some entertainment and a good time who are into the movies like the works of Lloyd Kaufman and DV indie horror comedies, Knight is your flick to watch! Overall, we will get our share of bad reviews but also make people laugh and entertain some of them. We just hope that the entertained people is the majority.

Dale: One would not think the horror realm would be big in Iceland? Is there much of a following?
Bjarni: Not really, Iceland is pretty much filled with ‘posers’ when it comes to horror. People who only enjoy remakes and such. Though there are some people who love the old fashioned horror films, the gruesome 80’s unknown slasher flicks and the Troma movies. And they have usually also build up video stores or made some classic cult entertainment themselves. It’s a small portion of Iceland but known to most.

Dale: Have you tried going more international with distribution, such as within the USA or larger European countries?
Bjarni: That is what we are doing right now. Knight of the Living Dead will be our first film released outside of Iceland. We have also worked on a couple of movies shown overseas but Knight will be the first distributed. We are hoping for the same thing for our new film The Breeding, but also hoping that it will get more attention as it is our greatest work yet.

Dale: Hasn’t the film industry in Icelnad been better known for documentaries, commercials and the like?
Bjarni: Pretty much. I think the biggest amount of movies in Iceland is TV documentaries that our biggest channel and production company RúV makes. However, the biggest list of films released by Icelanders in Cinemas is Drama Comedies. The last action film was made back in 1997 and got horrible views, same with the only ‘big budget’ horror film released in 2002 which lost a lot of money.

Dale: I seem to recall a few decades ago, some of the Scandinavian countries, Finland for example, even had a ban on horror film?
Bjarni: I don’t know much about the film policy on Finland but Iceland saw no such ban. Iceland has never been very strict when it comes to movies; saw Shocker when I was five, Spawn when I was seven (in cinemas), From Dusk Till Dawn when I was eight, Toxic Avenger when I was 10 and Nightmare on Elm Street 13 years old. Both my parents and the film association in Iceland weren’t bothered by it as they think of film ratings not as much as the ‘law’ but rather just a friendly warning. Though Iceland did get pretty crazy when Eminem and Limp Bizkit got popular and tried to tell parents about not letting their younger children listen to it, same with Grand theft Auto 3. After that game got popular, some similar games where actually banned up to the age of 18 (Our biggest number for movies is actually 16). Sweden did also have some strict rules but never really banned anything to my recollection.

Dale: What interested you in film making to begin with?
Bjarni: A lot of different things. When I was young and growing up in Gothenburg, I would watch a lot of TV. I would love shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Toxic Crusaders. Collecting the toys, reading the comics and watching the shows made me want a same future in all those things. I started doing animation at a very young age and some of my dream projects also include making shows and comics. Just on the whole field of entertainment, that’s what I find so wonderful and I want to be a part of that. Whether it’s movies, video games, comics or a TV Show. I want to make it because I love watching it, reading it, playing it, hearing it and being a part of it. There was never a question about it what my line of work was going to be.

Dale: Is there an area that you prefer over others, such as direction, production, writing, acting or whatever, for yourself?
Bjarni: I’m a fan of all. Directing gives you the freedom to express yourself in any way you want and bring the movie to the vision you have in mind, writing is great because you can bring your own ideas to life, I also love acting as it’s being a part of a movie in a whole different way, it’s nice to work on a film and not have to worry about the production or the worries of the money to finance or how the scene is going to pan out, but sit relax and deliver your lines. Overall, I love every possible part to work on a film which is why I tend to do so many when working on my own films.

Dale: Who are some of the actors and actresses you have worked with?
Bjarni: I’ve worked with some people known outside of Iceland such as Lloyd Kaufman, Justin Channell and Joe Pinkerton and some Icelandic actors who haven’t gotten that much attention outside of Iceland but they are Höddi Björnsen (star of ‘tWins’), Steinar Geirdal (Astrópía), Viktor Aron (’Spaugstofan’), Andri Kjartan (’Róska’), Einar Darri (’Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey) and Siggi Jökull (’Maður Eins og Ég’).

Dale: Are you considering making a wider swing of international film fests and the like, if you can get in, to get your projects known?
Bjarni: Yeah, our film Clownie and the Satanic Cult will hopefully be shown either TromaDance 2007 or 2008 and we hope to bring it and The Breeding to some future film festivals.

Dale: Like with the video problems with PAL and US systems in the past, there are problems with zone one and zone two for DVD. Have you considered a way around this, such as the zone 0 DVDs which are more expensive but may make marketing easier?
Bjarni: We have Region 2 here in Iceland but we were lucky enough to be able to make Knight Region 1 while sending it to distributors. In the future, we will either have Region 1 (when going to the US) or simply Region 0.

Dale: What composers do you use for music in your films as the music is an element a load of indie producers overlook?
Bjarni: My brother and I come from a long line of musicians and composers and there for have never had a problem with using music. Simply creating it ourselves or using finished work from family and friends. We have though been so lucky to get the opportunity to use some music from famed bands such as Green Jelly, Ultra Vomit, Doghorse, Devil Puppet, Changer, Kuraka and Crotchduster.

Dale: What of anything, in your opinion, separates your works from the rash of other indie films out there?
Bjarni: My style and the style of my company IBS Entertainment is a blend of things that have inspired us in the past, put together in a mix, it’s pretty much something I haven’t seen in the production of any other. Being no specific genré, we add minor layers of all kinds to the production of the film. Our films are a kind blend of Japanese Manga, Cult Slasher films, Troma films and early 90’s comic books. After making Knight, we have not used a script since. We write the synopsis give the actors their characters and motivation and just let it flow. What we have so far is something that I think people will look at and find pretty original.

Dale: Does the cold in Iceland pose problems with you for outdoor shooting?
Bjarni: Not really. We are very much used to the cold that comes every now and then. There is also not that much snow here. Usually just around October-November. So we tend not to shoot at those months. The biggest problem is there is very little daylight when the winter is here so we try to shoot as much of the in-door sequenses during that time thought we also often wish to shoot in correct order.

Dale: English is also fairly well known in Iceland, correct? What are some of the other languages that are heard in the area and have you considered multilingual releases of your films?
Bjarni: Almost everyone in Iceland speaks Icelandic, English and Danish (because
Denmark is such a big part of the Icelandic past). And being similar languages, many people know Swedish and Norwegian. There are also many people who speak Polish here.

Dale: What are your future film plans?
Bjarni: We are currently working on the film The Breeding which looks like to be our greatest project yet to come. We hope to have it finished sometime in 2007. We also started work on a mockumentary entitled Brian McGee: Superhero Extrodinare which we hope to finish when we are done with the Breeding. Other then that we have a couple of films in early development stages like Mother Earth, Bounty, Kings of the Project and The Day Nazis took Over my School. And all that stands between us and those projects our time and money which we do hope we have soon enough.

Dale: Anything in closing that you would like to touch on before we end this?
Bjarni: Just that I love doing interviews and I love to talk to people who are into the same thing as me, so whoever read this, don’t be shy about dropping me a line at bj_arni@hotmail.com. And thanks for doing this interview with me Dale.

In 2054, Paris is a labyrinth where all movement is monitored and recorded. Cut off from the world for its own protection, the city has nonetheless continued to expand. Now, 21st century skyscrapers overlay centuries-old architectural masterpieces. And below street level, a sophisticated network of streamlined plazas push up against the city’s ancient, deteriorating tunnel systems. Casting a shadow over everything is the city’s largest company, Avalon, which insinuates itself into every aspect of contemporary life to sell its primary export – eternal youth and beauty.

When 22-year-old Ilona (Romola Garai), one of Avalon’s most promising scientists, is abruptly kidnapped, Avalon calls on Barthélémy Karas (Daniel Craig), a Paris cop with a hard-fought reputation for finding anyone, no matterwhat sacrifices he has to make along the way. As the trail gets hot, Karas senses he’s not the only one looking for thebeautiful enigma, and every witness he digs up seems to turn up dead.

To find Ilona and unlock the secrets of her disappearance, Karas must plunge deep into the parallel worlds of corporate espionage, organized crime and genetic research – where the truth imprisons whoever finds it first and miracles can be bought but at a great price.

Renaissance is a bold never-before-seen vision of a stark near future drenched in hidden secrets and technological frontiers. Directed by Christian Volckman, Renaissance takes film noir to its most stylized edge, utilizing live actionmotion capture, animated in 3D and rendered in high contrast black and white to create a graphic novel come-to-life.

Click here to see the trailer.

Troma might well be the Little Giant of indy cinema, expanding from a small New York based indy company known for producing the lowest-budgeted films since the days of Ed Wood, to a major empire that spans the world. They have caught on; with an unexplainable cult following that would baffle some of the cinema purists. Their enthusiasts continue to build into an army even now. It is a strange tale.

Known for making crazy film and even admitting it, the group hit a fluke with their Toxic Avenger series, which featured the exploits of a nerd who gets thrown into toxic waste and emerges an uncanny super hero. Looking like a cross between the Thing in Fantastic Four episodes and Swamp Thing, this muscular mutant sat out not only to obtain revenge on people who bullied him before, but to fight crime a la Batman.

The Toxic Avenger series did indeed put Troma on the map. The first movie proved to be a real sleeper, spanning several more sequels, a line of memorabilia and a cartoon show. This also enabled Troma to start producing films with better special effects (though they maintained their reputation for grotesque humour and tackiness, never wanting to swerve too far from the course). Sergeant Kabukiman, NYPD, Rapid Grannies and other films followed, in the true line of Troma weirdness.

Having understood the pain of being lambasted in the media and the stereotypes associated with low budget cinema, as Troma grew, producer/director Lloyd Kaufman likewise started to enter the distribution business, helping others to gain exposure for their films. They obtained distribution rights for numerous works and not just small-time productions either. They even signed on for bringing some of Argento’s films into the USA.

Among the features Troma brought to light was a rarity called Cannibal, The Musical. This film featured the life of Albert Packer, a western era cannibal who may or may not have been guilty of the crimes he was accused of. The film was written by and acted in by a trio named Matt Stone, Trey Parker and Juan Schwartz, all of course famous now for the South Park cartoons. Always fixated by Packer, his trio created this film, full of black humour, long before their cartoons became a hit. In a line similar to Troma, they found success when it was least expected. This is nothing new for Troma.

Lloyd himself likes to stress how many obscure actors back then became well-known later on, including Samuel L Jackson and Marisa Tomei, both of whom played in Troma productions early in their careers. The group also did much to advance Brick Bronsky, a wrestler turned actor who played in many Troma films, sometimes as a hero and sometimes as a villain.

Lloyd and crew continue to make the rounds at numerous film fests and fan gatherings per year, having never forgotten their beginnings and remaining totally devoted tot heir followers. Though the money is there, where it always wasn’t before, they have maintained the “image” set by early Troma vehicles, even though they could expand into fancier productions. Graphic violence, big tits, sexual humour, black comedy and satire remain high priority items for everything they touch.

Bravo for Troma, a company proving what can happen by defying the critics and never giving up.