• Arte broadcasts this Thursday at 20:55 the Icelandic series Blackport, Grand Prix Series Mania 2021.
  • This black comedy in 8 episodes tells the privatization of fishing in Iceland in the mid-1980s.
  • Behind this pitch a priori boring hides a scathing and hilarious satire on the excesses of capitalism.

A pitch a priori boring! Blackport, Icelandic series in eight episodes, broadcast this Thursday at 20:55 on Arte and available on Arte.tv, tells the privatization of fishing in Iceland in the mid-1980s. Created by the Vesturport theatre company, the social chronicle Blackport, Grand Prix Series Mania 2021, is a tasty and fierce black comedy about the excesses of capitalism, at the confluence of the influences of the unclassifiable Aki Kaurismäki and the Coen brothers. Why should we not miss this economic and ecological pamphlet that never falls into didactics?

This astonishing and truculent mural begins with the introduction of fishing quotas in 1984 by the Icelandic government, to put an end to the unbridled fishing open to all, which threatened to deplete fish stocks.

The irresistible rise of the fishing barons

This regulation has evolved contrary to the original spirit of the law, and has paved the way for a wild liberalization of the sector. The sea and its resources found themselves concentrated in the hands of the most powerful entrepreneurs, real fishing barons.

"Fish and fishing grounds have been privatized, even though our Constitution says it belongs to everyone! We wondered how this happened and why did it happen? " says Gísli Örn Garðarsson, co-creator of Blackport, whom 20 Minutes met at the Séries Mania festival.

The latter also plays Jón, mayor of a small fishing port in the remote West Fjords region of the island, who is about to conclude the purchase of an old trawler with businessmen who have come especially from Reykjavík.

The stakes are high: this boat will allow the city, gravitating around a home of fish workers named "Blackport", to obtain the precious fishing quota established by the State.

Alas, everything seems compromised, while Jón's brother, an alcoholic to the last degree who was supposed to take control of the ship, is late for signing the transaction. Harpa, secretary of the town hall and Jón's mistress, decides to take matters into his own hands.

The beginning of an irresistible ascent. "My character will participate in the purchase of this boat, then run the factory. Harpa will become the most powerful woman in the city," says actress and co-creator of the series, Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir.

A colourful portrait of 1980s Iceland

The lure of profit and compromises will complicate matters and plunge the small fishing port and its inhabitants into the neoliberal frenzy of the Thatcher and Reagan years. "Very quickly, Jón will become Minister of Fisheries while owning shares in the factory. For his part, Harpa is initially an innocent person who just wants to take care of his family. Over the course of the episodes, she persuades herself that she must control everything because she knows how to do it better than anyone else. In a way, this is what happened with the quota system," says Gísli Örn Garðarsson.

Through the destinies of this small community, Blackport paints a colourful, funny and warm portrait of Iceland in the 1980s. "A period that is dear to us, because we grew up there and a lot of things changed at that time," says Gísli Örn Garðarsson. "It's such an important part of our story that we had to tell it," says Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, co-creator of the show and interpreter of Grimur, Harpa's husband. A televisual UFO, which does everything at the same time on the management of natural resources and makes a lot of laughs!

  • Entertainment
  • Series
  • Series Mania
  • Arte
  • Fishing
  • Iceland