Short Films: The Valtari Mystery Film Experiment

Over the summer, Sigur Ros has begun to release a series of twelve films by twelve different filmmakers inspired by the songs on their album, Valtari, calling the series the Valtari Mystery Film Experiment. According to their website,

"The idea [of the Valtari Mystery Film Experiment] is to bypass the usual artistic approval process and allow people utmost creative freedom...'We never meant our music to come with a pre-programmed emotional response. We don’t want to tell anyone how to feel and what to take from it. With the films, we have literally no idea what the directors are going to come back with. None of them know what the others are doing, so hopefully it could be interesting.'"

Here are a few of my favorite films so far:



Sigur Rós - Ég anda from Sigur Rós Valtari Mystery Films on Vimeo.

"First useful pop video in history. File under: Educational." - Ragnar Kjartansson, Director

Sigur Rós - Varúð from Sigur Rós Valtari Mystery Films on Vimeo.

"For a little while now I have been experimenting with doing videos that are more like moving images or paintings. They have no beginning, middle or end so the video doesn´t expect anything from you. you don´t have to watch it all, you can glance at it or watch for an hour, it´s just your experience.
"I have also been doing music videos which are almost the total opposite. They have to be fast, lot of things happening in a short period of time otherwise you just turn it off.
I was curious to try to combine the two...
"Varúð means caution or warning so this image instantly came to my mind. someone making warning signs with a flashlight. I wanted the Varúð video to have a slow build up like the song and leave something for the viewers to imagine for themselves. We have no idea who they are or what they are warning us about. I made the video by animating a postcard (see attached) and filmed myself over and over again climbing on top of a woodenbox in front of some blue paper." - Inga Birgisdóttir, Director

Sigur Rós - Ég anda from Sigur Rós Valtari Mystery Films on Vimeo.

Director: Ramin Bahrani

Check out their website to see the rest!