Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir’s documentary follows Icelandic violinist Steina Bjarnadóttir and Czech filmmaker Woody Vasulka who meet in Prague in the late 1950s as young artists and lovers, marry and then settle in New York in 1965. The pair start experimenting with video and electronic media and their groundbreaking work places them among the primary architects of video art. Once the darlings of the New York art scene, and collaborators of Andy Warhol, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, we find them in present time in Santa Fe, forgotten by the art world, in the process of archiving their lives work, struggling to make ends meet.But renewed interest in their work put them back on the map.

The film was produced by Margrét Jónasdóttir of Sagafilm with Gunnarsdóttirs Krummafilms, in co-production with Sweden’s Simon Klose, Denmark’s Vibeke Vogel and the Czech Republic’s Radim Prochazka, with co-financing from RÚV, SVT, DR, support from the Icelandic Film Fund, Nordisk Film & TV Fond and the Czech Film Fund among others.  Juno Films handles rights in North America and the BBC has just acquired UK rights. The film will be released in Icelandic cinemas via Bió Paradís late October.

The world premiere of The Vasulka Effect at Malmö’s Nordisk Panorama will be followed by a Q&A via Skype with Steina Bjarnadóttir.

When did you first hear about Woody and Steina Vasulka and have the idea to bring their story to the screens?
Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir: I studied in California - Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco. When at the College of Arts & Crafts, I was doing mostly photography but people thought I was a video artist and asked if I knew Steina. That was in 1986. I decided to meet her and we became friends.

I then moved back to Iceland. Years later, in 2013, I was driving in the US and dropped by Steina and Woody’s house in Santa Fe. I was surprised to see that they were living on the brink of poverty and they were trying to re-mortgage their house. I thought. OK it's time to do a proper documentary about them.

The Vasulkas are widely known as pioneers in video art. They were well established among artistic circles in the US in the 60’s and 70’s and have influenced other artists, but somehow they remained outsiders. That intrigued me. I also loved the way their relationship started, after a chance meeting in Prague in 1959 that led to a marriage proposal at first sight. And 60 years later, they are still together.

It’s very interesting to see how they complement each other, but at the same time, they are true artists in their own right. Steina is influenced by her own Icelandic upbringing and broad artistic talent as a violinist, while Woody’s early training in mechanics and engineering in the Czech Republic has carved his own creativity. But is Steina in a way the driving force in the Vasulka creative duo?
HG: Steina in fact has always strived to be independent. Other people have described them as an entity but they are very different. Their wish to challenge each other, to innovate with technology is what has been the driving force behind their creative collaboration. They also wanted to share everything. They were like YouTubers before YouTube was around. Steina would send her tapes to anyone who wanted to see them.

They were the product of their time - NY in the 60s and 70s, when counterculture flourished, but they were not politically active…
HG: They wanted to challenge the media outlets, which is why the Black Panthers were interested in video and in them. But no, they were not political activists. They were just interested in videos, voltage and frequency, that was as radical as it got! Woody had come out of communism [he left Czechoslovakia in 1965 for New York] and didn’t want to hear about it.

How long was your shooting period and how was your collaboration with the Vasulkas? Steina seems very strong willed…
HG: She is still a free spirit. She would make fun of me, ask ”how many times do you need me to enter this door...I will do my own video art piece about me entering and coming out of this door!” But she didn’t pressure me in any way and gave me full access to their material.

In terms of timeline, in 2014 I went back to the US to do some research, thanks to a script development grant. It was clear that Woody was going down, but the minute the camera was on, he was always performing. At the end, it took me four years to film them. They were totally broke when I started. I had the sense that they would be rediscovered at some point, and it did happen! Now they have an art dealer, they are travelling to exhibitions and tributes around the world. I wanted to wait for the film to end at a major show or museum. That chance happened in September last year.

What were the biggest challenges during filming? How much material did you end up with?
HG: Thankfully I had concentrated periods of filming. But the biggest challenge was to get Steina to gather their story verbally. She was starting to treat me like her daughter. She would say…”oh you know this already!” My producer Margret [Jonasdóttir] was a big help as her presence forced Steina to be more vocal.

The other great challenge was opening the Pandora box of all the archive materials. They had an amazing volume of personal items including unique footage as Woody was a trained filmmaker (had studied at the FAMU and was famously chosen over Vaclav Havel when he applied) before turning to video art.

What is your biggest wish, now that the film is finished and world premieres at Nordisk Panorama?
HG: The Vasulkas have inspired my life. I hope that finally the general audience will also get to know them. Steina and I have had many conversations. She once said:” I just want to have 100 monitors and one person in the audience and I said: I’d like to have one monitor and 100s of people in the audience!”