Writer · Director · Producer · Faroe Islands

Gudmund
Helmsdal

Genre films from the edge of the North Atlantic.

Awarded a 3-year Faroese State Artist's Grant · 2026-2029
★ Brother Troll · 121 awards · 162 festivals · 43 countries ★ Whistler · Nordic Genre Lab 2026 ★ Whistler · NAFF Bucheon 2026 ★ Brother Troll · 121 awards · 162 festivals · 43 countries ★ Whistler · Nordic Genre Lab 2026 ★ Whistler · NAFF Bucheon 2026
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01

Backed to make them

From June 2026 I hold a three-year national artist's grant to write and direct a new slate of Faroese films.

A short film is a calling card. The features are the real work, and the grant makes them my full-time job for three years. In that time I want to finish two of them and get a third ready to shoot. One is a folk horror, another a survival war drama based on real events, the third a documentary about why we sing. What they share is a root, in the Faroese language, the landscape, our history, and the way we actually live. I believe ambitious, locally grounded cinema, genre very much included, is how a small nation reaches the world.

Listafólkaløn 2026-2029 · Mentanargrunnur Landsins (Faroese Arts Council)

02

About

Portrait of Gudmund Helmsdal
Gudmund Helmsdal · Tórshavn

I grew up in the Faroe Islands in the 1970s and 80s, with little access to cinema and an outsized love of it. That took me to a film degree in Copenhagen, an internship at Final Cut for Real, four years in the Sydney industry, and a stretch studying Chinese language and culture in Beijing, before the islands pulled me home.

I make genre films (folk horror, war drama, westerns, fables), and a documentary when the subject demands it. Whatever the form, the source is the same: Faroese history, myth and landscape, and the people who endure them. I run Helmsdal Media and develop my films with Outlier Projects and GRÓ Studios, and co-host Hermann & Helmsdal, the first Faroese film podcast.

MA Film Studies, CopenhagenTórshavn Cannes · Berlin · BucheonGenre cinema
03

In focus: Whistler

Whistler poster

Whistler

Survival Folk Horror · Feature · ~90 min · The first Faroese horror feature

A survival folk horror set on the bird cliffs and grazing lands of the Faroe Islands, where four marine biologists race to catch the last ferry after their guide's fatal climbing accident, only to find themselves hunted across forbidden grazing land by a reclusive farmer who uses a bone whistle to command a pack of grotesque, half-human creatures.

A deliberately provocative entry into a live Faroese argument: the right to walk on another's land.

NAFF · Bucheon · Jul 2026 Nordic Genre Lab · Sep 2026 4th draft USD 2.3M budget USD 646K secured Shoot 2027
The Farmer, a silhouette on the ridge in fog
The land is not something we control, only something that tolerates us, until we go too far.

Director's statement

Inspired by a hike in the Faroese mountains, this is a folk horror about the unwritten laws between people and landscape, and what happens when modern ideas of access, ownership and the freedom to roam collide with something older and less forgiving. The film explores guilt, survival, and humanity's tendency to treat nature as something to be studied and managed rather than respected. Locally rooted, internationally resonant, and driven by the atmosphere and raw power of the landscape itself.

Gudmund Helmsdal, writer-director

Written & directed by
Gudmund Helmsdal
Produced by
Jón Hammer · Outlier Projects
Story consultant
Stephen Cleary
Cinematography
Rúni Friis Kjær
VFX · SFX
Peter Hjorth · Morten Jacobsen
Music
Hettarher
The carved bone whistle
The bone whistle, the Farmer's instrument of command.
04

The slate

Choir conductor before a singing crowd

Syng (The Song in the Body)

Documentary · ~70-80 min · Pilot funded

A documentary built as a choral symphony in four movements (Breath, Work, Rupture, Gathering) about why Faroese people sing, climaxing in the midnight song of Ólavsøka, where thousands become one voice. Not a film about how special we are, but about what singing does to us, and what is lost if it fades.

With Outlier Projects · Pilot 2026 · Premiere 2028
A Faroese sloop on a stormy North Atlantic

Vandaferð (A Dangerous Voyage)

War Drama · Feature · ~100-120 min · In development

1940. Faroese sailors run fish to Britain through U-boat waters while their nation pays the price for a war it chose to join. Following the seven-man crew of the sloop Union Jack, drawn from Frederik Bláhamar's memoirs. A survival story, and an intimate portrait of ordinary men in an extraordinary moment.

With GRÓ Studios · 4 drafts · Teaser produced
A creature crawling in the fog

Kallað (Called)

Short · Proof of concept for Whistler · ~12-15 min

A school bus stops in the mountains. The driver goes for help; when she returns, the children are gone. Almost wordless. Landscape, sound and dread carry everything. A standalone short that tests the world and the creatures of Whistler.

Shooting September 2026 · Outlier Projects

Also in development

Brotin
Feature · Faroese Western
Líkjast vit?
Short
Múli
Feature · Folk Horror
Hoydalar
Feature · Folk Horror
dieLand
Feature · Horror
Tourist/
Feature · Thriller
05

Track record

Trøllabeiggi

“Brother Troll” · Short · 2021

In a lone Faroese valley in 1898, two brothers who agree on nothing, least of all God, find that some jokes can't be taken back.

A fermented tragicomic western set in a lone Faroese valley in 1898. Two brothers share a farm at the edge of the world. One is devout, the other has no use for God, and they agree on nothing but how to needle each other. Then an ordinary day takes a turn that neither of them can undo. A grim and tender little film about faith, spite, and what we owe the people we can't stand to lose.

121
Awards
162
Festivals
43
Countries
30′
A fermented western
Still from Brother Troll
Still from Brother Troll
Still from Brother Troll
Images, movements and transitions held by a fine hand, framed in sound, light and landscape into a whole, as if it were a painting or a sculpture brought to completion.
Rói Patursson, Varðin, 2022
▶ Watch the trailer Festival record
06

On set & in the market

Selected crew & location work

2026No Rest for the WickedLocation Scout
2025The Last Paradise on EarthLocation Scout
2024EpiloguesLocation Scout
2023Peter Pan & Wendy · DisneyLocation Scout · PA
2022Trom · seriesLocation Manager · 6 eps
2021No Time to Die · Bond 25PA · Drone op
2016Survival Tactics1st AD · 1st AC
2011Buzz AldrinLocation Manager

Faroe Islands unit on international and Nordic productions, 2011-present.

Film markets attended

’25 Marché du Film, Cannes ’25 Waves, Mumbai ’25 EFM, Berlin ’24 Marché du Film, Cannes ’24 Nordic Film Market, Göteborg ’23 Marché du Film, Cannes ’23 EFM, Berlin ’22 Marché du Film, Cannes ’22 Haugesund ’21 Nordisk Panorama, Malmö ’17 FilmART, Hong Kong + MipCom · MipTV · Sitges

Get in touch

Let's make
something.

gudmund@gmail.com

+298 595353  ·  Tórshavn, Faroe Islands

Helmsdal Media  ·  in development with Outlier Projects & GRÓ Studios

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