MIFF: Time and Water

Iceland’s glaciers – once imposing, now imperilled – loom over a personal journey through generations in Sara Dosa’s follow-up to Fire of Love.

The first Icelandic glacier was declared lost to climate change in 2019; recent studies project that, in 200 years, the country will be entirely ice-free. For celebrated author Andri Snær Magnason, the layers of history melting along with the ice have a personal connection: in the 1950s, his grandparents were among the first to explore Iceland’s glaciers, capturing their splendour in incredible colour footage that we see alongside Magnason’s own home movies.

Infusing chilly facts with a lyrical sensibility, this awe-inspiring documentary brings big environmental questions into focus through the lens of personal history. It’s a balancing act that director Sara Dosa already perfected in her breakout Fire of Love (MIFF 2022), which shone a new light on the work of pioneering volcanologist couple Katia and Maurice Krafft. Arriving at MIFF via Sundance, SXSW and CPH:DOX, Time and Water is a moving meditation on what once was, and what has already vanished.

“A poetic musing on intergenerational memory, a whimsical, yet staunchly political elegy for the glaciers, and a mournful look at the Earth in all her majesty and mystery.” – IndieWire

Unclassified 15+