Popular From Iceland

What happens to an ordinary Icelandic family when the father of a new-born baby gets the opportunity to stay at home with the baby for three months? Will the relationship between father and wife better, and will the distribution of household chores be any different? And what has the employer and the colleagues at work to say about this arrangement? Those questions are among other that are asked in the documentary Fathers in paternity leave. We fallow one of the fathers through his paternity leave, talk to some others and interview, among others, a sociologist and a psychologist who are experts on the matter.

Árni Egilsson is considered to be among the finest double bass players in the world. Jón Páll a guitarist and a natural born talent. Skúli Sverrisson, an electric bass player, who at the age of 30 has gained recognition as one of New York's finerst young talents. This creative documentary in three parts is shot on location in California and New York. Fine cinematography an those three strong individuals result in a unique and entertaining television program.

In July we fallow puffin catchers going on small boats to uninhabited rocky islands where they catch the flying birds into nets. This hunt is very dangerous as the men have to operate from narrow ledges in cliffs high above the surfing ocean. In August we see another side of the puffin/man relationship, as the children lovingly collect helpless puffin chicks from streets and alleys and keep them in cardboard boxes at their homes for the night until the can help them to the sea in the morning.

In August 1997, British rock band Blur launched what is probably the most astonishing and exotic rock'n'roll tour of all times, called Next Stop North Pole. They where to play for Nordic nations not at all used to concerts by the most popular band of that time. See Iceland, The Faroe Islands and Greenland through the eyes of Blur.

When the first Icelandic engineer returned to Iceland from his studies in Denmark a hundred years ago most Icelanders lived in great poverty in dark turf houses as thet had done for centuries. One could hardly speak of any roads, only some trails formed through the centuries by man and animals. There where no bridges over the rivers, only one lighthouse and no man-made harbour to speak of. This documentary shows the evoliution of technology in Iceland and the great changes that the society has undergone since the first engineer arrived with new ideas and knowledge that has turned Iceland into a highly modern society in a very short span of time.

A film about the life and work of the Icelandic poet Matthías Jochumson.

In this documentary, we witness the manifold presence of woman as mother, lover, worker and symbol in the works of the artist, and follow the development of her role during the career of the artist.

A documentary about the disastrous consequences of a volcanic eruption known as "Skaftáreldar", which took place in 1784.

A film about the Municipal Water Supply in Reykjavík which was founded in 1909.

For centuries driftwood from the European mainland and all teh way from Siberia has washed up on the shores of Iceland. This film shows a driftwood expedition casting off at a fishing village on the east coast of Iceland, bound for the deserted Langanes headland in the far north-east. The film not only shows the collecting of driftwood, but also deals with the history of the settlement on the headland, narrated in part by the last farmer to leave.

An educational film about a new type of trawler which had considerable effects on the fishing industry in its time (around 1947)

A film about the Snæfellsnes glacier and various mysterious phenomena which are associated with this area.