“Folk tales, fairy tales, mythology, the past…I’ve always been interested in that,” said writer/director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman). “I don’t entirely know why. I’m more interested in that subject matter than I am in films, maybe, in the end.”

The same is perhaps true for Robert’s writing partner, Sjón, an internationally acclaimed Icelandic author who published his first book of poetry at the age of 16. Sjón said, “When I was growing up in Iceland in the 70s, there was no cinema. But if we had had filmmaking at the time, I think I would have seen that as an option.”

The two met thanks to a chance encounter at a party in 2016 at the singer Björk’s home. “She invited us to dinner and said she was going to invite her friend Sjón, who she thought I would get along with.” Over home cooked salmon at Björk’s home, the two connected immediately.

At the time, Robert had just premiered The Witch (also written as The VVitch), a New England folktale about the 17th Century. “Oh, I’ve just written a novel that takes place in the early 17th Century Iceland and features witchcraft and sorcery. So obviously, we realized we had something in common.”

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