Current student, Brúsi Ólason grew up with a love of film and theatre. As a kid, growing up in the small town of Selfoss in Iceland, Brúsi adored watching kids’ movies on the family TV, off of their VCR, often until the tape snapped. Actually, that might not be strictly accurate. As a child Brúsi might have had more of a love affair with the act of watching itself. When his father gave the VCR away—afraid Brúsi's consumption was too much—Brúsi continued to stare at the blank TV for hours on end.
The obsession eventually became his passion. As a teenager, he made small film projects with the friends he could wrangle together. Brúsi learned English from the movies and television shows that were imported into the country. Up until age 23, he spent less than one month outside of his country.
He attended the University of Iceland, where he studied creative writing and film theory. He wrote his thesis on slacker cinema—filmmakers like Richard Linklater, from which he still draws—and after his third year of university, he moved to Venice with his then-girlfriend (and current fiancé) for three months to work at the Venice Biennale Art Show. Neither spoke a word of Italian.
After graduating from the University of Iceland, Brúsi moved to New York to begin work at the School of the Arts. Now he’s at the start of his third year, and he has already amassed recognition for his distinctive body of work. His “8-12” film Sjaomst or its American title See Ya has already premiered at the Aspen Shorts Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Rhode Island Film Festival, and the Reykjavik International Film Festival.
He’s got a lot planned for his thesis years. He’s finishing his Directing 4 film, editing another classmate’s film, and preparing to shoot a non-thesis film as well. All he’ll reveal now about his final thesis film, is that it is “a rural story set in Iceland.”
