Of Northern Irish-Icelandic descent, Douglas has spent a considerable
part of his life in Northern Ireland, where he studied Media Studies
for two years at The University of Ulster. Douglas was born in Iceland,
in a small village Mosfellsbær just outside the capital Reykjavik. He would spend his summers with his grandparents in and around Coleraine, Northern Ireland.
When it comes to film, Douglas is for the most part self-taught. His
mother is Icelandic and is a civil servant. and his Irish father is a
geologist and teacher who has lived in Iceland for many years. As a
young boy, his father would let him use his 8mm camera and later on,
the family video camera, to make numerous short movies.
Douglas has been a regular prizewinner at the annual Reykjavik Short
Film Festival, in all taking five prizes for four movies. In 1998, he
received several awards for his twenty-minute short movie entitled
Iceland is the Dream, which was to be the inspiration for his first
feature film. The Icelandic dream went on to break all box office
records in Iceland and was invited to various prestigious film
festivals including Toronto, Edinburgh and Pusan. Robert Douglas has
made three feature films and one documentary, his latest film Eleven
Men Out was released in over 20 country's around the world including
North America, France and Germany. It competed in the Panorama section
of the 56th Berlin International Film Festival, the film was invited to
over 100 film festivals including The Toronto International Film
Festival and MoMA New Directors New Films in New York. Robert Douglas
is considered one of Icelands most exciting young film directors.
Robert has been living in Beijing since 2007 preparing and working on
numerous film projects. A feature film about the ex-pat community in
Beijing will be released in 2013.
