Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson

From Fargo Filmmaking

Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson (b.1979) is a filmmaker and faculty member in Film Studies at Minnesota State University Moorhead. Her film Low Grade Genius played at the 2003 Fargo Film Festival. She later served as Committee Chair for the Animation/Experimental Film Selection Committee for the 2007 Fargo Film Festival. She will be co-chair of the 2008 Fargo Film Festival.

Kyja has screened her films and videos at festivals and galleries around the world since the late 1990s. Born in Jamestown, North Dakota, she spent her youth in the company of her imagination, curiosity, and her older brother. They considered themselves world explorers, even though digging to China through their parents’ garden failed at every attempt.

Moving to Fargo at the age of nine, she spent over a decade studying as a cellist before moving to Minneapolis. While studying at the University of Minnesota, Kristjansson-Nelson was an IRSEP scholar to Iceland, where she studied Icelandic language at the University of Iceland. She earned her bachelor of individualized studies degree in film studies and Icelandic culture from the University of Minnesota. She also earned an associate in science degree in filmmaking from the Minneapolis Community Technical College. After working in television in New York City, she returned to school to earn her master of fine arts in film at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She has won several awards and grants, including a Fulbright grant to Iceland.

Kristjansson-Nelson is interested in the sculptural force of memory and how stories, genealogy, and landscape inform collective consciousness, which in turn shapes who we are as human beings.

Contents 1 Filmography 1.1 As Director 1.2 As Actor 2 Affiliations 3 External Links

[edit] Filmography

[edit] As Director

• Portraits & Testimonies 6: Mae Meier (2006)
• Portraits & Testimonies 5: Mike Schank (2005)
• Portraits & Testimonies 4: Mark Borchardt (2005)
• Portraits & Testimonies 3: Cris Sequeira (2005)
• Portraits & Testimonies 2: David Nickel (2005)
• The Art of Effort (2005)
• Landslag (2004)
• Portraits & Testimonies 1: One Minute Interview (2004)
• Low Grade Genius (2002)
• The Fargo Street Hawks (2001)
• The F.U.P. Is Forming (1999)
• For the Children

[edit] As Actor

• Low Grade Genius (2002)
• The Fargo Street Hawks (2001)

[edit] Affiliations

• Minnesota State University Moorhead
• Fargo Film Festival

[edit] External Links

• Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson at Kyja Kristjana