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RAI FILM Festival takes place on 27-30 March 2025. Learn more.

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2021

Half Elf

Directed by Jón Bjarki Magnússon

2020 – 64'

Synopsis

A lighthouse keeper prepares his earthly funeral while trying to reconnect the elf within. Hulda and Trausti have shared a roof on Icelandic shores for over seventy years. Her love of books is matched by his love of stones. When he bursts out singing, she begs him to stop screaming; when he tells her he wants to change his name to “Elf” she warns him that his family will abandon him. Now, as his hundredth birthday nears and Trausti senses the hand of death upon him, he is on a quest to find the coffin that can carry this elf back to the mysteries beyond. Half Elf is a modern Icelandic fairy-tale, where life is celebrated – despite everything, despite ourselves, and despite the reality that awaits all of us in the end.

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RAI FILM Festival 2025

The next RAI FILM Festival will take place in person from 27-30 March 2025 at the Watershed Cinema and the Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts in Bristol (UK) and online throughout the month of April 2025.