Sigur Rós: Heima

Colour, DIGIBETA
Iceland, United Kingdom, 2007, 94 min
Section: 2008: A Musical Odyssey

Synopsis

Unannounced open-air concerts in both urban and rural environments – this was how impressionistic Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Rós greeted their homeland (heima) after returning from a world tour. We follow them on this musical road movie around Iceland where the band performs the biggest and smallest shows of their career in their home environment: in deserted fish factories, far-flung community halls, sylvan fields, darkened caves, and even in a cod-liver oil storage tank in the western fjords. This inventive, visually powerful documentary is just as majestic and intimate as Sigur Rós’s music itself and overturns the journalistic cliché about the landscape of fire and ice which supposedly influenced the band’s music: the bonds between the land and its people are, in fact, much deeper. Using evocative means (through images, music and brief testimonies), Sigur Rós: Heima speaks of the presence of home, history and tradition in contemporary Icelandic culture.

About the director

Dean DeBlois (b. 1970, Canada), Canadian director, screenwriter and animator, is known primarily as one of the authors and directors of the feature-length animated film Lilo & Stitch, 2002), which was nominated for an Oscar. The Reykjavik IFF in 2007 opened with a gala premiere screening of the documentary Sigur Rós: Heima, which enjoyed huge public acclaim in the director’s native country: DVD sales earned DeBlois a Gold Disc in the music video category. He is currently working on another feature-length film, The Banshee and Fin Magee.