The Children's Book and Film Festival 2020 was launched today.

Reading is the game of life! Books and films bring us knowledge, insight and adventure!

Books and films will play an unusually large role in Hafnarfjörður's nursery and primary schools over the next week. The children's book and film festival in Hafnarfjörður was launched for the fifth time this morning with an opening ceremony that was broadcast live to pupils and staff. Fanney Dóróthe Halldórsdóttir, the Director of Education for the City of Hafnarfjörður, gave a short address to the children and opened the festival. Bergrún Íris Sævarsdóttir, an author and illustrator and Hafnarfjörður's 2020 Artist in Residence, read from her newly published book, The Magic Land, while Ragnheiður Gröndal performed several songs from The Night Animals.

^{The children watched the festival opening at their home ground – in their school.} 

A cultural festival for children in Hafnarfjörður with a focus on books and films.

The Children's Book and Film Festival, a cultural festival for children in Hafnarfjörður, is held from 9th to 16th October. This week, a special emphasis will be placed on books and films within Hafnarfjörður's nursery and primary schools, and on creative and fun projects related to both. The festival's aim is to foster children's interest in reading and literacy in the broadest sense, and it supports the literacy projects of the town's nursery and primary schools that have been running for the past few terms. Alongside this, a number of events for children and their families were planned at the council's cultural institutions. These events have been postponed in light of the current situation. They will be scheduled as soon as the environment and circumstances permit. 

Hafnarfjörður's Artist in Residence will visit the town's schoolchildren at the first opportunity. 

In November, children's author Bergrún Íris Sævarsdóttir will be visiting schools to spark pupils' interest in reading and writing in the primary schools of Hafnarfjörður. She will talk about her work and teach the children about how books are made, from the first idea to the bound book, which can later become a play or a film. Bergrún herself has written twelve children's books and illustrated over 50 books, as well as advertisements, games, posters and computer games. Bergrún, who is Artist in Residence of Hafnarfjörður In 2020, she won the Icelandic Book Award for her book Langelstur að eilífu, and The Teacher Who Disappeared received both the Guðrún Helgadóttir Children's Book Award and the Fjöruverðlaunin. The national treasure Guðrún Helgadóttir has always been a great favourite of Bergrúnar Írisar, as both are from Hafnarfjörður and draw inspiration from their home town. Bergrún will then teach the children about the varied work of an illustrator and will hopefully leave them full of inspiration and ideas for their own creative works.

Upcoming events will be advertised once new dates have been set. More on that later! 🙂