User:EagleSeagullVignisson/sandbox

Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon was born in 1968 in Reykjavik, Iceland, to an Icelandic father who was a playwright, film and theatre director and a Siberian-Yakutian mother who is an actress and visual artist. His mother graduated from the acting school GITIS in Moscow and his father graduated from the legendary film school VGIK where his parents actually first met. They moved to Iceland from Moscow in 1966 after his father lost faith in the utopian dream of the USSR. Magnússon lived in Aarhus, Danmark 1979-83. He moved to Paris in 1989, studied at the Sorbonne University 1990-91. He earned a BFA in fine arts from Parsons Paris School of Art and Design, 1991-96. Since then he has exhibited his paintings, installations and video work in galleries in Iceland, Finnland, Sweden, Norway, Danmark, France, England, USA, China, Argentina, Russia and Siberia. In recent years, Magnússon has focused more and more on his documentary films, he calls them The Cultural Thriller Movie Series and they have been shown all around the world. He has received several awards and was nominated to the Nordic Council Film Prize in 2005 for his documentary Screaming Masterpiece international film festival darling, led by Björk and Sigur Rós. Magnússon first full feature film MIHKEL was premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2018. Dramatic film based on a real-life tragedy that took place in Iceland in 2004, involving two childhood friends from Estonia: Mihkel and Igor. It is produced in collaborations with Truenorth, Film Huset, Amrion Production and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson with full production support from KMÍ the Icelandic film Centre, Estonian Film Instiute and the MEDIA Programme of the European Union. Ergis Film Production was established in 2002. The company’s focus has been on documentaries, mostly on artist, and the company has been involved with major working artists: Björk, Erró, Sigur Rós, Gudbergur Bergsson, Thor Vilhjálmsson, Ólafur Elíasson, Sigurdur Gudmundsson, Alain Robbe Grillet, David Lynch, Kristján Gudmundsson, Matthew Barney and Yoko Ono. Magnusson has worked closely with a team of experienced professionals: producer and film director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Los Angeles based film producer Sigurjón Sighvatsson, writer Jón Proppé and co-director of the Serpentine Galley in London, Hans Ulrich Obrist.