Árni Ólafur Ásgeirsson, 1972–2021
Photo credit: David Oldfield
We regret to inform you that Icelandic film director Árni Ólafur Ásgeirsson (also known professionally as Árni Ásgeirsson) has died at the age of 49, following a brief illness, as first reported by the website Klapptré yesterday afternoon. Árni Óli, as he was often called, was born in Reykjavík in 1972. He studied film directing at the prestigious Polish national film school in Lodz, Poland, graduating in 2001.
Árni Óli's short but storied career began with the celebrated short film Anna's Day (2003), which traveled widely and won awards at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and elsewhere. He co-wrote the Róbert Douglas feature A Man Like Me (2002) before making his own feature debut as a director with the film Thicker than Water (2006), about a happily married ophthalmologist who discovers he's not the biological father of his oldest child. The film premiered in the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for an Amanda Award.
His second feature, Brim (Undercurrent), was released in 2010. The film, a collaboration with the Vesturport theater group, is about the fate of a trawler crew on a fishing trip that takes an unexpected turn. The film was nominated for eleven Icelandic Academy Awards and won six, including Best Film. It was also nominated for the Nordic Film Prize and appeared in many film festivals worldwide.
Árni Óli's third feature as director was the animated film Ploey: You Never Fly Alone (2018), which also had a successful festival, theatrical, and broadcast run. The Ploey of the title is a young plover chick who's unable to fly south with his flock and must survive the harsh Icelandic winter in order to reunite with his loved ones the following spring.
Árni Óli recently completed work on his fourth feature, the Iceland/Poland coproduction Wolka, which will be released posthumously later this year. Produced by Iceland's Sagafilm, Wolka tells the story of a Polish woman, recently released from prison, who breaks parole to travel to Iceland to confront her past.
At the time of his passing, Árni Óli was preparing to direct a Polish TV series for Netflix, which he wrote along with Icelandic screenwriter Ottó Geir Borg and others, and developing the animated sequel Ploey 2: Legends of the Winds.
Árni Óli also taught film acting at the Iceland University of the Arts and was a prolific director of commercials in Iceland, Poland, and elsewhere.
Árni Óli is survived by his wife, Marta Luiza Macuga, a production designer; their son, Iwo Egill Macuga Árnason; his mother, Hafdís Árnadóttir; and his brother, Ingólfur Ásgeirsson, and his family. On behalf of the Icelandic film community, we send them all our deepest and most heartfelt condolences.