101 REYKJAVIK
2025-10-22 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
“A funny, offbeat romantic comedy” —on October 22, see 101 Reykjavik to kick off our 25th Anniversary Rescreens! Directed by Baltasar Kormákur (Everest; Touch), this deadpan black comedy features the unyielding Icelandic landscape as a backdrop to an unlikely tryst.
Based on the classic Icelandic novel by Hallgrímur Helgason, 101 Reykjavík (Iceland, 2000) was a cultural smash upon its release, winning the Discovery Award at Toronto International Film Festival, and was one of the very first films screened here at Scandinavia House. Now, for our 25th anniversary, we’re returning to the story of Hlynur (Hilmir Snær Guðnason), circling 30 and still living with his parents, who is wasting life away either in a deadbeat bar or at home downloading porn. He is shocked out of his ennui when his mother’s friend Lola (Victoria Abril) comes to visit, a flamenco dancer whose enigmatic ways entrance Hylnur. But is Lola’s relationship with Hylnur’s mother all that it seems?
“Finely acted and shot with a beautiful, understated cinematic sweep … 101 Reykjavk is a poignant, endearingly offbeat work.” (Philadelphia Enquirer)
“A film that’s as outlandish as it is entertaining…” (Film Threat)
This program has been supported by the Monika and Charles Heimbold Fund for Exhibitions and Programs.

KNITTING THURSDAYS! | LEARN TO KNIT WITH HILARY SNELL
2025-10-23 18:00 - 20:00
Learn to knit at Scandinavia House this fall in classes in October and November!
When one thinks of Scandinavia, one of the first things that comes to mind is the distinctive patterns of knitted sweaters. Knitting has been an essential part of Nordic culture since the early 1500s and people, sheep and knitting have always been inextricably linked. The craft has been a source of artistic expression while also keeping generations warm during the long, cold winters.
Knitting is a symbol of self-sufficiency. Families tended the sheep, spun the wool from those sheep and used yarn to clothe themselves and their loved ones. They would also sell their work to support their families. Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland all have rich and varied knitting traditions and continue to express themselves through stunning design and wool work.
Join us for small, two-hour workshops to learn the basics of knitting. In a casual and supportive setting, you’ll learn how to cast on, knit, purl, and cast off. You’ll leave with your own knitted piece to continue your work at home. Scandinavia House will supply the needles and the yarn.
DID YOU KNOW? Repetitive motions like knitting, where your mind becomes fully absorbed in the task, can lead to increased happiness and decreased stress.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Hilary Snell, a longtime visitor services staff member of Scandinavia House, is of English, Scottish, and Irish descent, and loves everything about Nordic culture. She was taught to knit by her grandmother and mother when she was eight years old and took it up again in her late 20s, and has been knitting ever since. She enjoys sharing her love of the craft and of fiber arts in general. See her work at: https://www.instagram.com/lockwoodknits/
Register

BETWEEN LICHEN AND HEAVEN
2025-10-23 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for a screening and discussion with ASF Fellow Susanna Monseau and filmmaker Ruth Grimberg on their documentary Between Lichen and Heaven, exploring the Ahlskog Tannery in Ostrobothnia, the last reindeer leather tannery in Finland.
In the small town of Kronoby, Finland, the last reindeer tannery continues a fragile craft that links Sámi herders, local communities, and the global fashion industry. As reindeer hides risk becoming waste, the tannery struggles to survive amid economic pressures, shifting sustainability laws, and climate change. Interwoven with the voices of herders and tannery workers, Between Lichen and Heaven reflects on the precarity of livelihoods where culture, ecology, and economy remain inseparably connected. By looking at the tannery’s place in the Finnish fashion supply chain, the film also explores how global textiles and fashion industry companies in Finland have embedded sustainability as a key value, and how they work to understand and improve their operations to uphold their responsibility to people and the planet.

THE DAY ICELAND STOOD STILL (50th Anniversary)
2025-10-24 19:00 - 21:00
Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Women’s Strike with a October 24 screening of The Day Iceland Stood Still, with a film talk by director Pamela Hogan!
When 90 percent of the women of Iceland walked off the job and out of their homes one fall morning in 1975 refusing to work, cook, or take care of the children, they brought their country to a standstill and catapulted Iceland to the “best place in the world to be a woman.” Told for the first time by the women themselves, and laced with playful animation, The Day Iceland Stood Still is subversive and unexpectedly funny. “We loved our male chauvinist pigs,” recalls one of the activists, “We just wanted to change them a little!”
Filmed in a collaboration between U.S. director Hogan, who campaigned as a high school student in the 1970s with her activist mother to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, and Icelandic producer Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir, who at the age of seven accompanied her mother to the 1975 strike, the film features appearances by celebrities such as former Icelandic president Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the world’s first democratically elected female head of state, as well as music by Björk. Released in the lead-up to the strike’s 50th anniversary in 2025, the film’s message about the collective power of women to transform their society inspires viewers to reimagine the impossible.

ARVO PÄRT - EVEN IF I LOSE EVERYTHING
2025-10-25 14:00 - 16:00
On October 25, see “Even If I Lose Everything,” Dorian Supin’s third and final documentary about Estonian master composer Arvo Pärt, with a panel featuring celebrated virtuosos Peter Bouteneff, David Lang, and Paavo Järvi to follow! This program takes place alongside celebrations of the composer this season at Carnegie Hall, including an October 23 performance with the Estonian Festival Orchestra, and will be conducted in the presence of H.E. Alar Karis, President of Estonia, H.E. Heidy Purga, Estonia’s Minister of Culture, and H.E. Kristjan Prikk, Estonia’s Ambassador to the United States.
Perhaps the most personal installment of Supin’s series, this intimate portrait steps closer to the man behind the music, showing his many sides in a domestic setting as a composer, husband, father, and grandfather as he navigates the demands of his legacy. Once known as the avant-garde firebrand driven from his country by Soviet censorship for his radically prayerful melodies, “Even If I Lose Everything” centers on the gentler rhythms of Pärt’s days back home on the eve of his 80th birthday.
The film draws its title – and much of its stories – from flashes of Pärt’s workbooks, all of which he has kept close through endless personal and political upheavals. Throughout his decades of writing music, he has filled the workbooks with contemplations expressing his moments of grief and joy, his discoveries, worries, and experiences. The musings and recollections inspired by these notes, in parallel with glimpses of domesticity, come together to reveal a composer committed to living a life in accordance with the music he creates: meditative, emotionally evocative, spacious, and grounded in the realm of the sacred.
Pärt’s music has insinuated itself deep into the cultural landscape, not only as a phenomenon extending far beyond the usual classical listenership. It has enriched countless films and dance compositions, it has inspired the work of visual artists and architects. And although his musical style is rarely imitated in a direct fashion, he has influenced contemporary composers in ways that may be less obvious. How does this gentle music make such a broad and deep impact? The panel conversation will draw us deeper into Pärt’s cultural resonance.
