This October, see A Letter From Helga (Svar við bréfi Helgu, Iceland, 2022), a passionate love story set within the towering beauty of Iceland’s western fjords, at Scandinavia House! Director Ása Hjörleifsdóttir (an ASF Fellow) will be present for a film talk and Q&A following the screening.
In 1940s Iceland, the lives of two neighboring families are torn apart by the romance that develops between young farmer Bjarni (Thor Kristjansson) and aspiring poet Helga (Hera Hilmar). To their local community, both appear happily married: Bjarni to the beautiful Unnur (Anita Briem), tilling land that has been in his family for nine generations, and Helga to her husband Hallgrímur (Björn Thors), raising two children on a plot nearby. But when the two meet at a literary reading, they are immediately drawn together, and soon realize that they are haunted by shared feelings of disappointment and emptiness. As their affair intensifies, they both yearn to escape — but do they dare to leave everything behind? Based on a novella by Bergsveinn Birgisson, A Letter From Helga is a lyrical, sweeping story of forbidden love.
“Hjörleifsdóttir’s poignant adaptation churns with ardor, guilt, and regret about choices made and paths left unexplored” (The Seattle Times).
“Full of intellectual hunger and a lust for life which nothing can contain” (Eye For Film).
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Ása Hjörleifsdóttir (1984) is an Icelandic writer/director, and a graduate of the Columbia Film MFA program. Her films include the short film ÁSTARSAGA (2013 finalist for a Student Oscar) and the feature films THE SWAN (TIFF 2017) and A LETTER FROM HELGA (international premiere PÖFF 2022). Ása is also a collaborator of the visual artist Ragnar Kjartansson and recently directed his performance piece SANTA BARBARA in Moscow.