Fact File: Cold Haven

Andri Ómarsson from Icelandic production company Glassriver and Pedro Lopes from Portugal’s SPI discuss six key locations from this crime thriller, which unfolds across both countries.

Set between Iceland and Portugal, Cold Haven is an eight-part crime thriller exploring the immigration experience. The story follows Icelandic detective Soffia as she attempts to solve a murder within the Portuguese community on Iceland’s Westman Islands.

Produced by Iceland’s Glassriver and Portugal’s SPI for Icelandic streamer Síminn and Portuguese public broadcaster RTP, the series is predominantly set on the Icelandic archipelago of Vestmannaeyjar, as well as its capital Reykjavík and Portugal capital Lisbon.

Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir stars as Soffia, with the ensemble cast featuring Ivo Canelas, Maria João Bastos, Catarina Rebelo and Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson.

Here, executive producer Andri Ómarsson, CEO of Glassriver, talks us through the Icelandic locations, while fellow EP Pedro Lopes, content director at SPI, discusses the Portuguese places in the show.

ICELAND

Hafnarfjörður
Although Cold Haven evokes the rugged isolation of the Westman Islands, much of the primary filming took place in the town of Hafnarfjörður, situated about 10km south of the capital, Reykjavík.
Here we discovered two houses positioned directly across from one another, which became central to the show’s visual storytelling, allowing for a seamless interplay between interior and exterior scenes. This setup reinforced the show’s themes of proximity and entrapment, where characters are constantly within sight yet emotionally distant, mirroring the tension that defines the narrative.
The town’s deep ties to folklore subtly reference a key theme throughout Cold Haven: the unknown. From a logistical standpoint, the ability to shoot both interior and exterior scenes in the same location (thanks to the kind Icelanders who answered the door to us) allowed for continuity and made these two houses a central part of our story.

Stórhöfði
Situated at the southern tip of Heimaey, Stórhöfði is known as the windiest place in Europe, which makes it one of the most challenging production locations. Despite this, the script calls for a particular location for a character who lives outside town and is an outsider in the community. Therefore, finding the right setting was crucial.
We discovered Stórhöfði, a weather station that perfectly fit our needs. It offers one of the most breathtaking views in the country and stands isolated on a high hill, making it impossible to approach unnoticed. It’s safe to say Stórhöfði lived up to its reputation – we faced stormy conditions the entirety of our time there, even when the weather was calm elsewhere on the island.
Stórhöfði’s relentless gales and ever-present mist contributed to the bleak and dangerous atmosphere of the series and the iconic brooding Nordic noir aesthetic. Its desolate cliffs and rugged lava fields, overlooking the vast sea, heighten the sense of vulnerability, making the setting feel both hauntingly beautiful and inherently hostile.

Westman Islands
Often described as a miniature version of Iceland (you can travel across the main island in 10 minutes or less), Vestmannaeyjar (the Westman Islands) was a priority location for Cold Haven, with most of the action taking place in a small town.
What makes the islands unique is their location just south of Iceland. As a volcanic archipelago, whose largest and most populated island is Heimaey, its landscape stands apart from the rest of Iceland’s natural scenery. Currently, the only way to travel to and from the islands is by boat, as there is an airport but no scheduled flights. This setting complements and contributes to the show’s themes of isolation, mystery and survival. The dramatic volcanic terrain, black sand beaches and jagged rock formations create an eerie and unforgiving backdrop that mirrors the tension between the characters.
The islands foster a close-knit community where everyone knows each other – and just about everything about one another. Our main challenges during the shoot were largely weather-related. In poor conditions, the journey to the islands takes three hours by boat, whereas in good weather, it’s only a 40-minute trip. This made any last-minute schedule changes particularly difficult.

PORTUGAL

Infante Santo Avenue
This series is very cinematic. We’ve given great importance to all the departments – art direction, photography direction, costume design – and I’m passionate about architecture, so we talked a lot about where we’d like to shoot in Lisbon. I’ve wanted to film on Infante Santo Avenue for a long time; I’m fascinated by the modernity of its buildings built in the 1950s, which contrast with the old Lisbon that is always the ‘postcard’ image of the city.
Infante Santo is made up of a group of five residential blocks on pilotis (stilts), isolated from each other, and is very influenced by the architecture of Le Corbusier. It’s a good example of the sophisticated, upper-middle-class family at the centre of the show, and contrasts with the harsh life they’ll find on the Westman Islands.
Infante Santo’s famous staircase has a panel by Carlos Botelho, from the same period, called ‘colourful city,’ which serves very well as a contrasting backdrop for the scene of a mother and daughter rushing out of their house, in a planned escape that will take them to Iceland, fleeing a situation of domestic violence.

Mouraria
Although I’m an executive producer on this series, my screenwriting background drives the way I read a script, thinking about the purpose of each scene, on the construction of the character, or what will allow the action to move forward, and, above all, making me ask myself about the emotional impact each scene will have on the audience. The directors did great work with the actors, building relationships between them, but also in their relationship with the camera.
Lisbon is known as the city of seven hills. The oldest areas, such as the Mouraria neighbourhood, which owes its name to the Muslim population that concentrated there in the 12th century, are more than 900 years old, so the buildings are an amalgamation of different times, with narrow, labyrinthine streets, but with stunning views over the city and the river.
Today, it is an area inhabited almost exclusively by tourists, in a very current contrast to the transformation taking place in the city. This is a place of positive memories for our main character, of moments of adventure and complicity. It’s an old, familiar, comfortable and sunny place, which will contrast with the new reality she will find outside her country.

Guincho
The series travels through two different countries, so it’s important the locations make it clear whether you’re in Iceland or Portugal. In addition to this, particular attention was paid to ensuring the locations served the dramaturgy, sometimes emphasising the tension between characters and sometimes acting as a contrast, with an idyllic landscape as the backdrop to a violent scene, for example – like the scenes that we shot in Guincho.
This area is part of the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, which gives it a wild atmosphere, without buildings and with mountains in the background. The beach has a long stretch of sand, with dunes, and you must take a long road along the cliffs to get there. The environment is inhospitable but beautiful. It’s harsh and violent, with rough seas and strong winds. We can have a fantastic sunny day and, in one second, the weather changes radically.
On the day we were shooting, we went through moments of bright sunshine and heavy rain. That’s also what the scene we shot is about – a moment of family happiness that quickly descends into violence.

tagged in: Andri Ómarsson, Cold Haven, Glassriver, Pedro Lopes, SPI