Time and Water

“In the beginning there was nothing, then fire and ice met. Out of the chaos arose a cow, made of ice and snow, and from her body emerged glaciers that carved out mountains and valleys. Rivers flowed from her udders, nourishing the world. Her ice created a home… and ice became a home for us all.” This is how, in Icelandic mythology, the world and all that lives in it came into being; it is the story that the well-known Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason read to his children.  But the climate is changing, and the glaciers are disappearing, such as the Okjökull, which had all but vanished by 2014.

In this impressive documentary by Sara Dosa, Andri bids farewell to the Okjökull, interweaving the glacier’s history with his own family history to connect the endless geological timescale with our own lives. The film is as much a time capsule for the future, in which memories of the glaciers are kept alive, as it is a loving family portrait.