What is Iceland without ice? That question, once unimaginable, has become urgent as climate change shrinks the country’s glaciers to the vanishing point.
The Nordic nation has already bid farewell to dozens of its smaller glaciers – the first to go being Okjökull (also known as Ok glacier), in 2014. Icelandic poet, novelist and essayist Andri Snær Magnason was tasked with commemorating Ok, his words etched into copper and fastened to rock uncovered by the glacier’s retreating ice.
Magnuson’s writings and his family’s rich history in the once frozen terrain of Iceland form the basis of Sara Dosa’s documentary Time and Water, which premieres on the National Geographic channel this Friday and on Saturday on Disney+. The filmmaker, who earned an Oscar nomination for her previous documentary Fire of Love, joins the latest edition of Doc Talk to discuss her experience on the film that has screened at festivals around the world, from Sundance to SXSW, Thessaloniki in Greece, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, Doxa in Vancouver, Hot Docs in Toronto, festivals in Sydney and Perth, Australia, and even Malta last month at the Mediterrane Film Festival.
Dosa tells us how she connected with Magnuson, a man so revered in his country that he was enlisted to run for president in 2016. She also shares how witnessing a sky tinted orange by wildfires further inspired her exploration of a planet in peril.
The score of Time and Water incorporates rímur, epic rhyming poems that have been transmitted by Icelanders through the ages. Ice, inevitably, crystalizes in the country’s legends and stories. What happens to a country when the environment upon which its myths are based begins to alter dramatically?
Time and Water, from National Geographic Documentary Films, is an expected Oscar contender this year. Along with Dosa, the film is produced by Oscar winner Shane Boris (Navalny, Fire of Love), Elijah Stevens and Jameka Autry.
That’s on the new episode of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s senior documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.
