U.S. Ambassador Gunter invited Emmanuel Vaughn-Lee to the 2019 Reykjavik International Film Festival to promote US-Icelandic cooperation in the visual arts and to discuss how that genre could be used to raise awareness about Arctic challenges. He also brought the American Film Showcase Program to Iceland, which featured Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, an American filmmaker. This program, which was a collaboration between the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the University of Southern California, offered a way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing through film.
In August 2019, U.S. Ambassador Gunter brought the critically acclaimed duo Quindar to Iceland, which included Grammy Award-winning musicians. The group blends NASA audio and film archives into a musical genre dubbed “Hip Mobility.” An interactive, dynamic video presentation using classic and rarely seen digital archive NASA videos complimented their live musical performance. This performance, which was performed at several venues throughout Iceland, provided a valuable opportunity to reach a new and younger audience while also commemorating NASA’s 60th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of Apollo astronauts training in Iceland.
