Alumnus Davíð Már Stefánsson '19 has written multiple episodes for Katla, the first original Netflix show from Iceland, created by director Baltasar Kormákur and co-created by showrunner Sigurjón Kjartansson. The show, which will debut on Netflix on June 17, 2021, consists of eight episodes of which Stefánsson wrote four.
Katla is a grounded Sci-Fi show set one year after the violent eruption of the subglacial volcano of the same name which has dramatically disturbed the peace and tranquility in the small town of Vik. As people evacuate the area, the ice near the volcano starts to melt. The few remaining people manage to provide necessary community service and despite its grand location the area turns out somewhat apocalyptic. Mysterious elements, that have been deeply frozen into the glacier from prehistoric times, start to emerge from the melting ice and cause consequences no one could have ever foreseen. Read an interview with Stefánsson about the project here.
Watch the trailer to Katla below.
Davíð Már Stefánsson is a screenwriter from Reykjavík, Iceland. A journalist before moving to New York, he graduated with Honors from Columbia University School of the Arts in the summer of 2019 with an MFA in screenwriting. One of the pilots from his thesis portfolio, Arctic Dodgers, which was awarded Faculty Selects at Columbia University Film Festival, was optioned by a prominent production company in the United States and is in development. As well as having a BA in Philosophy and Creative Writing from the University of Iceland, Stefánsson is a Leifur Eiríksson Fellow and the Television Academy’s Drama Intern of 2017. Short films he has written have been shown all around the world and won awards at festivals such as the New Hampshire Film Festival and Tallgrass Film Festival. In addition to screenwriting for Katla, he was also recently staffed on the third season of Trapped.
