Time and Water (2026)

[bunniefuu]

[pickaxe thudding]

[equipment rattles]

[something opens]

[film projector whirring]

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[microphone tapping]

[Andri] Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

I hope that this will reach you.

We will never meet because

we live in different times.

I cannot send you a glacier,

but at least I

can send you this.

[theme music playing]

[projector whirring]

[jungle birdsong]

[water lapping]

[insects chirping]

This capsule could have

been filled with snakes

from the Amazon.

This boa constrictor on

my shoulders belongs to my

favorite uncle, John.

15 years later,

he invites me to help him

research the mating habits

of the giant anaconda

in Venezuela.

I would have been here,

but these plans conflict

with my own mating habits.

[baby exclaims]

So I stay in my own

habitat here in Iceland,

writing poetry and

science fiction.

[host] Andri

Snaer Magnason's book,

"The Story of the Blue Planet"

has garnered

significant attention.

This is perhaps the most

political Icelandic novel I've

read in a long time.

[Andri] Hulda!

Over there is the

glacier tongue, look.

Whoops!

Over there is the glacier.

[Elin] Over there!

[Andri] The first thing I'm

sending you is a story that I

used to tell my own kids.

It's about our home.

[stirring music playing]

First, there was the void.

[asteroid whooshing]

Then, fire met the ice.

[expl*si*n booms!]

[water rushing]

In the chaos rose Auohumla,

a cow made of frost and snow.

From her body came

hundreds of glaciers...

...that carved

mountains and valleys.

From her udders ran four

rivers that nourished the world.

Her ice made a home

here in Iceland,

and Iceland became a

home for all of us.

[birds chirping]

[waves crashing]

[bright ethereal music]

[dog barking]

[children chattering]

[bright music playing]

We have lived with

the ice for 1,000 years.

[Andri] Smile!

'Isgland'... Isgland?

Is this correct?

[Eilin] Yes.

[Andri] Good job.

[Eilin] Iceland.

[Andri] But that was

just the beginning,

and you will need many stories.

[Andri] I can capture

the Northern Lights!

Wow!

Look, they're moving.

Wow!

They disappeared - whoa!

[Eilin] They're

over here now.

[gentle music playing]

[water rushing]

[Andri] I don't know

how old you will be when

you receive this.

I am 53, speaking to

you from the year 2026.

And this is what

Iceland looks like now.

[stirring music playing]

[lava roars]

[Andri] I don't think I've ever

seen anything as beautiful.

How do you like it, girls?

[both] It's awesome.

[bright music playing]

[water rushing]

[Andri] This is

such a beautiful path.

[bird hoots]

[Andri hoots back]

- Andri, are you with us?

- Yes.

[birds screech]

[bright music playing]

[Andri] My love for this place

comes from those who raised me,

my parents and my grandparents.

We are a family of

firsts and lasts.

Grandpa Jon was the last

in a 1,000-year line to be

born on this farm.

Grandma Disa was

the first to laugh always.

[laughter]

[overlapping chatter]

And Grandma Hulda,

the first woman

to fly in Iceland.

Grandpa Arni,

one of the first

to explore Iceland's glaciers.

But I became the first

to say goodbye to something

we never thought

we could lose.

[wind]

[wind]

[overlapping chatter]

[singing in foreign language]

[Andri] Now, it's 2019.

My youngest of four kids,

Hulda, is turning 11.

[Andri] Wow!

[overlapping chatter]

[Andri] And my

last grandparent,

also named Hulda,

is still alive.

[Andri] You are living

up to high expectations, Hulda.

[Hulda] We Huldas here.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Andri] Grandma Hulda had been

married to my grandfather Arni

for 60 years.

Now, the things they

love most in the world are

beginning to die.

[reporter] In 2014, Ok

Glacier was the first glacier to

die due to climate change.

Now, a funeral commemorating

it will be held in August.

This funeral is the first

of its kind in the world.

[Andri] A funeral for a

glacier feels surreal,

like my sense of home

is slipping away.

I had been collecting my

grandparents' glacier stories

since I could remember.

And now, suddenly, I

see them in a new light.

I have this urge to

gather up all of them,

thinking they may be

useful for the future.

Let me send you

my favorite one,

how my grandparents

fell in love on the ice.

This is their footage.

Here they are on their

honeymoon in 1956.

And here they are in 2004,

2010, and 2017.

[Hulda] From a young age,

I just craved going

to the mountains.

In the springtime,

strangely enough,

I start to smell

a glacier scent.

[Andri] What

is a glacier scent?

[Hulda] Well,

I can't describe it.

- It was something

special.

There was just this smell -

it was exhilarating.

[Andri] And

when did you meet?

[Hulda] It was a

meeting of mountaineers.

[Arni] I liked

her right away.

[Hulda] I used

to say to my mom,

"Oh, I wish I was a boy,

then I could do this and that."

To have more adventures.

I was just up for anything.

Arni says to me, "We are going

up to the Vatnajokull glacier."

And I say, "Listen,

can I go with you?"

[Arni] The local

skiers asked if I was crazy,

taking a woman up

to Vatnajokull.

Thats completely ridiculous!

[host] The largest

glacier is Vatnajokull,

which covers about one twelfth

of Iceland's surface

and is the largest

glacier in Europe.

Trips up to

Vatnajokull are an act of daring

only for well-equipped and

highly experienced mountaineers.

[Hulda] We spent a

whole week on the glacier.

[Arni] I dont think

we have parted since.

[Hulda] We got

married on Friday,

and left early the next

morning for a three-week trip.

After that, we often went

up to Vatnajokull Glacier

with the Icelandic

Glaciological Society.

[Arni] This was the

beginning of the surveying.

These are the same measurements

they are taking today.

[gusting wind]

[Arni] Were you ever cold?

[Hulda] No, never cold.

We were newlyweds!

[Andri] Do you consider the

glacier to be your second home?

[Hulda] I do.

Its a different world

being on top of a glacier.

Everything is white.

It's just endless.

[film reel unspools]

[Andri] How

old are you now?

- I've forgotten

everything.

- You're

turning 95, my Arni.

- 95?

- Yes.

[Arni] Yes, you

keep track of this for me.

[Hulda] Yes, yes, I do.

[Arni] Completely.

And you always do.

I don't know how I would have

gone through life

if I hadn't had her with me.

[Andri] I want you to know

glaciers as my grandparents did.

[wind]

As I do.

[wind]

[distant wind]

[wind and microscopic debris]

[gusting winds]

[blizzard wind]

[ice creaking]

[ice creaking]

[ice creaking]

This is how a glacier sounds.

You can't quite see it,

but it's moving.

[ice creaking]

[ice creaking]

When snowfall stacks up long

enough, year after year,

the ice grows heavy and starts

to move under its own weight.

That movement is what

defines a glacier,

ice that has come alive.

[ice rumbling]

A glacier's life unfolds

in geologic time,

over centuries and millennia

instead of months and years.

Blue is the color

of the aged ice.

The deeper the blue,

the deeper the time.

As long as winter snowfall

exceeds summer melt,

the glacier will keep flowing.

This cycle brings

life to the land.

[gentle music playing]

[birds chirping]

[water rushing]

My grandparents thought

glaciers would always be there.

I had thought this too.

But then one day in 2014,

this is on the news.

[host] Ok Glacier was on

a mountain in Western Iceland.

It was always known as

Iceland's smallest glacier

but it will not be considered

a glacier anymore

because glaciologist

Oddur Sigurosson is on his way

up the mountain

to issue a death

certificate for the glacier.

[Oddur] I put down the cause of

death as extreme summer heat.

Ok Glacier was only about

700 years old at its demise.

That is to say, a mere

infant among glaciers.

Around the year 1900 it was

about 15 square kilometers.

But in the last 15 years,

it has shrunk faster than I

imagined glaciers could shrink.

It has declined remarkably fast.

It doesnt move anymore

and that's why it is "dead ice."

[water trickling]

[Andri] I wonder if the death

of a glacier will seem as

historic to you

as it does to me.

[water trickling]

For me, this is when

the horizon collapsed.

The future we were warned

about is no longer distant;

it is here.

Time is running out.

The first time I felt this way,

I picked up a camera.

And, without knowing it,

began making this time

capsule for you.

It's 1997, my girlfriend Magga

has just given birth to our

first child, Hlynur.

[Andri] This is Hlynur's

first bath

with his mother.

Isn't this beautiful?

[Andri] At the same time,

my other grandfather, Jon,

tells us he may be dying.

So we all come running

to his seaside home.

[Andri] Here we have four

generations lying on the grass.

The heirs to the throne.

The oldest man, with his

oldest son, and his oldest son,

and his oldest son.

- The oldest of them all.

[Andri] Look how cool he is.

I'm not ready to say goodbye.

Earlier that summer, I take a

job at the National Archives,

a place that preserves the

oldest records in Iceland.

Each archive is a portal that

sends me to another time.

I travel through

the Eddas to 1220,

when our myths of gods and the

cosmos are first transcribed.

The Book of Settlements

takes me to 874,

when the first humans

settled in Iceland.

Now, I'm in 1862, in a

folktale about elves.

Here, an elf has lured

a shepherd into her home

inside the rocks.

Then, I land in the living room

of an old woman born in 1918.

She is singing one of the

oldest art forms in Iceland,

song poems called rimur,

the Icelandic word for rhyme.

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[Andri] Rimur feels like such a

discovery that I share it on TV.

- I had never

heard anything like it.

But when I started listening

carefully to the lyrics,

it contained such sorrow.

It was...

about the collapse

of the old ways.

As I listened to the

constant repetition and rhythm,

I became enchanted by it.

[Andri whistling Rimur tune]

[Andri] I play the recordings

for my son when he gets fussy.

He calms down as soon as

the melodies start up.

This old woman singing my son

to sleep revives a world lost

to me, until now.

[Andri] We're filming him

now, when he can't do anything,

and when he starts

talking and being fun,

we won't take any

photos of him at all.

But I'll always have this.

[overlapping chatter]

[Andri] I was never a proper

nerd with a proper camera.

But thinking of

Grandpa Jon's last summer,

I just grab what is

handy and hit record.

- Andri, is there a

zoom lens on that thing?

- Yeah.

- Are you sure?

- Yeah.

[Andri] When you look

back over the last 50 years...

what stands out?

[Jon] What?

It's how fun it is

to make mistakes.

[Andri] It's fun to make

mistakes? - Yeah.

That stands out.

That stands out?

- Yeah.

And it never pays to save money.

- It never

pays to save money.

No.

- No.

[Andri] The more I film,

the more I can hold on to

Grandpa's every word.

It's as if recording him can

transport him into the future,

where I can meet him once again.

[Jon] It was the loveliest

proposal and confession

I've ever

heard from a woman.

[Disa] Is that so?

[Jon] No Icelandic woman has

ever said anything half as

beautiful.

[Andri] What did she say?

[Jon] You want

to know what she said?

[Disa] That's a secret.

[Jon] The loveliest

proposal I've ever heard.

It's a secret.

- It's a secret.

[Jon] But we should

definitely tell Andri.

[Disa] No!

[laughter]

[laughter]

[Andri] From this

point forward,

I keep the camera rolling and

record everything that I love.

[Andri] Everything's

covered in flowers.

Petur Jonsson's gymnastics show.

That's Bosi, he's

going swimming.

It's approaching midnight.

Grandma!

They're playing dodgeball.

A can of whipped cream.

The beautiful cake.

It's 11 o'clock.

Time for the boot toss.

Mmm, the steak is ready.

Hello Magga.

- Hi.

[Andri] Hello Hlynur.

- Hi.

How old are you now?

- Four.

[Andri] How

old are you, Hlynur?

[Hlynur] Five.

Six years old.

[Andri]

Hey Kristn Lovisa.

Are you turning six months old?

Hulda Filippia,

are you one year old today?

Elin Freyja, how old are you?

- Two years old.

[Kristin] Now I am three.

[Andri] Have

you gone nuts?

[Kristin] I

am a wild child!

[Hlynur] I'm

only one year old.

[Magga] Oh

my, the tiny baby.

[Andri] Magga, look

how young you are now.

Only 30 years old.

- Aw, 31.

[Andri] And how old am I?

[Hlynur] You're

five years old!

[laughter]

[laughter]

[Andri] In our family, Grandpa

Arni was our first archivist.

[gentle music playing]

Through his records, I can

step into his memories.

And so many of his

memories transport me to the

place he loves most.

[Andri] You took such

special photos on the glaciers.

[Arni] Yeah, I did...

[Andri] When I was a kid,

Grandpa Arni would put on

slideshows and tell us

tales of adventures.

Each photo jogs Arni's memory.

With this slide, he recalls

Hulda's happiness as the ice

mingles with the clouds.

With this one, he remembers

places waiting to be named.

The glacier plays tricks

on his memory too.

"That's how it is on a glacier,"

Grandpa Arni says.

"You think you've walked

this path before, but then,

all of a sudden,

there's a crevice."

[slide projector clacking]

And every once in a while, a

dahlia from his garden bursts

into the picture.

With this slide, Arni talks

about a certain kind of peace.

All these years later,

I understand just

what this peace means.

[Andri] What

is your first memory?

[Arni] I actually remember

quite well when my dad died.

[Andri] How old

were you when he drowned?

[Arni] 12 years old.

It naturally...

was a very big shock.

[Andri] I always

thought that this memory

pushed him away from

the ocean and far uphill.

For Hulda, glaciers were

a place of solace too.

[Hulda] First, I was...

engaged to another and

had twins with him.

Two lovely girls.

He went to study in

the United States.

And he found himself

an American

and just broke up with me.

That was naturally

a bit of a shock.

[Andri] She found strength

in the sky and in the ice.

[gentle music playing]

Grandpa Arni likens

photography to glaciers;

they also record

the passage of time.

Our glaciers contain:

a volcanic eruption from 1918,

another from 1983,

one from 2004,

and 2011.

Bubbles in the ice hold

ancient air that tells stories

of seasons passed.

Their warmth, their cold,

their precipitations,

their pollens,

their pollutants.

My grandparents were some

of the first to touch this

archive of deep time.

[host] Another milestone

was reached in the research

of Vatnajokull Glacier.

[Hulda] They were drilling to

reach the ice core down there.

I was an assistant...

There I am.

This was fantastic.

[host] Finally, an

ice core has been obtained

containing valuable information

about the internal

structure of temperate glaciers

and information on climate

changes in Iceland

back to the year 1500.

[Arni] That was,

and is, quite special.

[repeated tapping]

[Andri] Arni and Hulda would

tell me that to hold an ice core

is to hold the Earth's

memories in your hand.

[ethereal music playing]

[ethereal music playing]

[wind]

[overlapping chatter]

[Andri] Smile!

I'm making a video.

[Magni] Happy

birthday, champ!

It's your birthday today.

That is why we sing a song.

on the same day

you were born

Congratulations on your

lucky day, my lucky fellow.

[Andri] Grandpa Arni

won't remember this party.

When I tell him he

had a birthday, he says,

"How fun. How old am I now?"

[Andri] My Grandfather,

do you remember the honeymoon?

[Arni] Do I remember-

[Andri] The honeymoon

up on Vatnajokull?

[Arni] Oh no, I

don't remember that.

[Hulda] It's ok, go ahead.

He has become so forgetful.

[Andri] He says it just

happened one day, like a crack;

he couldn't remember

a single detail.

[fireworks exploding]

[fireworks exploding]

[Andri] You have to kiss!

[Andri] Now I can't blink

without a month passing me by.

[Andri] There you go!

Great! Great!

[Magga] How long

did she practice? 15 minutes?

[Andri] 15 minutes.

Oh, oh, oh...

[Andri] It's seven o'clock

and our thermometer shows...

[Magga] 36. (97F)

- 36?

[Magga] The thermometer

on the house is at 50 (122F).

[Andri] What

country are we in?

[rushing water]

[wind]

[Andri] I thought

I had more time.

There's so much I

want to ask Arni,

and so much more

I will never know.

[host] Beneath the

Vatnajokull Glacier lies a

restless family of volcanos.

[eruption]

[Andri] Our unpredictable

island holds many unknowns,

like when a volcano might erupt

and unleash a glacial flood.

[host] We see the water from the

glacier flowing down the slope.

A formidable force.

[Andri] We've always contended

with the elements here,

and adjusted our

lives around them.

[host] The flood tore massive

icebergs from the glaciers edge

and hurled them far

across the sands.

Those standing here sense

how small humankind is in

comparison to all of this.

[Andri] Reverence for

these forces is embedded in

the stories of my grandparents.

Their tales reflect a way

of seeing the world where

nature is alive...

...and full of mysteries.

[Hulda] Before we

changed the landscape here,

there were these cliffs.

I saw Hidden People

in the old days.

We once saw a Hidden Man

suddenly appear...

and then disappear.

[Arni] He disappeared?

- Yes.

[Jon] "I'm an

elf woman," she says.

Some of us live in cliffs..."

"while others live

inside rocks."

She said,

You can never fully see me"

"because it takes so much of

my energy to appear to you.

"But if I draw more energy,

I can speak to you."

"And even influence you."

- How are the new pants?

[Andri] They're nice pants.

- I had them shortened.

[Andri] Yes.

[Disa] They were too long.

[Jon] I cannot resist

the will of the elf woman.

She will keep appearing

until I give in.

For example, she

ordered me to marry Disa.

And I did it.

[Andri] So many of my

grandparents' generation have

stories like this.

Each hillock has a legend.

Every river, a folktale.

Every glacier, a hidden world.

When I worked at

the National Archives,

I found this recording,

a farmer telling a legend of a

mythical forest inside the ice.

[Ragnar] Hundreds of

years ago they found birch logs

at the edge of the glacier.

It's very strange.

I don't understand it, but

I'm not saying it isn't true.

[Andri] For centuries,

those living at the base of

Vatnajokull Glacier notice

logs thawing from the ice.

This is a strange sight in

our nearly treeless country,

sparking rumors of a

forest inside the glacier.

A place that hides

outlaws and trolls,

where time stands still.

But there is truth

to this legend.

It's around the year 900.

Our first ancestors just

arrived and encountered

trees growing here.

They name it Breioamork,

the Wide Forest.

Over the years,

a glacial tongue flows

down the mountain and freezes

the trees in time.

It's 2026 and that

tongue is still here,

now called Breioamerkurjokull,

the Wide Forest Glacier.

A name that ties this

living ice back to the founding

of Iceland itself.

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[thuds and ice shattering]

[host] A glaciologist

expressed concern with the

retreat of Icelandic

glaciers in recent decades.

He says the country will have

no glaciers in 200 years,

possibly much sooner.

[Oddur] Such bad news

is unprecedented in history.

And it constantly surprises

us how it keeps receding

faster and faster.

This is the same phenomenon

happening in Antarctica,

Greenland, the Himalayas and

all areas with glaciers.

Iceland's glaciers are

1,000 years old now,

which in some

sense means that

we lose 5 years

of history every year.

[Andri] I struggle with

the death of one glacier.

And here is the news,

they all will be gone.

Glaciers are leaving

geologic time.

Changes that once took hundreds,

thousands, even

millions of years are now

unfolding in a

single human lifetime.

[slide projector clacking]

[slide projector clacking]

Grandpa Arni has been

spending his days photographing

flowers from his garden.

[slide projector clacking]

All he can really remember

is that he loves Hulda.

[slide projector clacking]

[Hulda] There's

a whole box there.

Let's see.

This is when we all

went to the Highlands.

[Arni] Yes.

[Andri] He's been

losing his balance,

so we move him to

a care facility.

Upon one visit, I find

him in front of the TV.

He asks me, "Why is the

slideshow moving so fast?"

He slowly starts to fade away.

[reflective music playing]

[reflective music playing]

And then, he's gone.

[Andri] Tell me your name.

[Arni] Arni Kjartansson.

[Andri] When were

you born?

[Arni]

November 26th, 1922.

[Andri] And

what day is today?

[Arni] Its the

27th of March, 2004.

[Andri] We are collecting

sources and biological samples

so you can be cloned

in the 22nd century.

[Andri] All these years,

I thought my filming

was a way to bottle each

and every moment.

But, really, I was just

watching the past flicker

behind glass, noticing the

effects of time on camera tape.

Now, I see it for what it was,

holding on to dear

life as it charges forward,

trying to stop all that I

loved from slipping away.

I see the impulse to

hold on everywhere.

This is the Library of Water

in western Iceland.

It stores melted ice

from our glaciers.

[futuristic music playing]

[futuristic music playing]

Here is water from

Poris Glacier.

Here is Snaefells Glacier.

And this one is Ok Glacier,

collected just before it died.

Perhaps, in the form of water,

the ice could still

travel through time.

It's the same water, after all.

As ice, it holds memories.

As liquid, does it lose them?

[lighthouse softly pulsates]

[water dripping]

[wind blows]

[ice and ash crumble]

[water dripping]

[water running]

[emotional music playing]

I often think about

the unsettling quiet of

a glacier's death.

It's like a summertime

that just came and

stayed and stayed.

[water rushing]

[pensive music playing]

[pensive music playing]

[waves lap on the iceberg]

[air bubbles releasing]

[air bubbles releasing]

Will your oceans be

made of our glaciers?

Your rain of our seas?

Your water is my water.

Your time, also mine.

In my family,

Grandpa Jon's horizon is

his grandfather's horizon.

And his grandfather's

before that.

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[Andri] Here he is

singing "Dreamland,"

an ode to the seaside plains

where he made his home.

...there is

the land of my dreams

[Andri] Jon's love for

his home is intertwined with

the way he speaks about it.

He can transport me

there with a single word.

I think of this

one term he used...

...fuglabjarg, the Icelandic

word for "bird cliff."

[loud squawking]

[loud squawking]

It also means "a

noisy gathering."

He used it to describe

my parents' wedding.

It was a total

fuglabjarg in there.

You couldn't hear

a single thing.

But the bird cliffs that

Jon knew are no longer the

bird cliffs that I know.

[reporter] Seabirds

are finding it hard to adapt

to climate change.

Recent figures indicate that

the Icelandic puffin population

has declined by 70% since 1995.

Biologists say the

main reason is the rise of

ocean temperature...

[waves lapping]

[Andri] Will this word

for noise, for me,

now reference a

silent place for you?

Maybe fuglabjarg will

become kind of a ghost word,

where speaking it will

elicit a memory of birds who

no longer exist.

I wonder about the name Iceland.

In 200 years,

will saying my country's

name also summon a ghost?

[overlapping chatter]

[friend] Your

dad is videoing you.

[Hulda] I know.

[friend] Why?

It's so special to see an

11-year-old girl eating cake.

And ice cream.

- And ice cream.

What do you think about that?

[Andri] Shortly after

Hulda's birthday in 2019,

I was asked to write something

to memorialize the dead

Ok Glacier for its

upcoming funeral.

The words would go

on a copper plaque on

the mountain where the

glacier once lived.

[interviewer] It's kind

of a writer's dream,

and also a writer's nightmare.

You've got four lines.

How can you say something

that's going to be meaningful?

- Yeah, and you're

writing in copper.

So you don't have a easy delete

button if you make a mistake.

It's like when you make a

gravestone in a cemetery,

you, uh, somebody's

gonna read it in

200, 300, 400, 500 years.

Copper lasts longer than stone,

so maybe 6,000 years.

I'm not sure how

to approach this.

[expl*si*n]

Once I wrote

about the destruction

of another landscape.

I called upon Icelanders

to stop the construction of

a dam that would

choke a glacial river.

But I never thought the source

of the river itself could die.

And this time,

not because of a

local power company,

but due to the world's

hunger for power.

I have never written a

memorial for a glacier.

No one has.

How do you say goodbye

to what you never thought

you could lose?

When Grandpa Arni died,

I could not stop

writing his obituary.

I had too many words.

I never felt closer to Arni.

And yet, he's gone.

I could see how saying

goodbye could allow his memory

to live on.

Grandpa Arni lived a long

life worthy of celebration.

But Ok Glacier's life

was cut short by us;

there's no celebrating that.

How can I express the

scale of this loss in a way

that reaches the future?

[waves crashing]

[haunting music playing]

The death of Ok Glacier

is not a single event.

It threatens the life

of everything in our

interconnected world.

Our beaches, our forests,

our seasons, our loved ones.

Our language.

When upheaval happens

on this scale,

only myths feel big

enough to hold it.

In our mythology, the

world is born in ice,

but ends in the ocean,

by way of the sea monsters.

The Serpent of Midgard,

he is the ocean

and the planet itself.

In the Eddas, Thor tries

to conquer the serpent.

But just as he slays him,

the serpent kills Thor.

The waters rise,

and the serpent's venom

infects the seas.

Their mutual deaths trigger

the death of all the gods,

and a total destruction

of everything.

How can I tell the future

the extent of what we have

lost if the future

may not even exist?

[churning waves]

[wind gusting]

[overlapping chatter]

[fireworks exploding]

[Magni] Look at this here.

A little more.

No...

Leave it there!

When this light goes out,

then start it.

Now you can start it.

[Coach] Clear the ball!

[Magni] Yes, well done.

[Coach] And

forward, forward!

[applause and cheering]

[audio rewinding]

[Hulda singing in Icelandic]

[Andri] Let me

send you this song,

a rima that can transport

you through time.

Its patterns of rhyme helped

people to remember long stories

before recording

technology existed.

- There were women

learning strange poems from

their grandmothers.

Who learned it from

their grandmothers,

who in turn learned it

from their grandmothers.

You can feel how time

shrinks down to nothing

when you look at it through

these old women.

[Hulda singing in Icelandic]

[Hulda singing in Icelandic]

[Andri] Rimur transmits

our ancestral stories

across centuries,

each verse a vessel for

keeping the past alive.

Maybe generational memory is

the closest way that humans can

experience the depth of time.

Happy birthday Hulda Filippia

she has a birthday today.

Hi Grandma.

[Hulda] How

was the wedding trip?

- It was incredibly fun

and challenging.

We experienced all kinds

of weather on the glacier.

- Yes.

- We were there

for three weeks.

- Three weeks?

- Yes, on the glacier.

- Wow.

That's a long time.

- It was a fun time.

[Andri] Can you ask

her to calculate for you?

When she'll be 96 years old?

- Do you want to figure out

when you'll be 96 years old?

- Yes, yes.

[Andri] We forgot to

turn on the camera there.

Now, lets do it once again.

- Andri.

Should I say it?

- Yes, you should ask.

- When will

you be 96 years old?

- 2104.

- 104.

- Yes.

- It will be fun to know

what will have happened by then.

- Yes.

[Andri] 2104.

Looking at it this way, a

future beyond my own life is

beginning to come clear.

It's a place where

my own daughter might

be a grandmother,

and where my own grandmother's

memory can live on.

I can touch time,

stretching back to Grandma

Hulda's birth in 1924,

all the way through 2104,

where we may reach you.

It's like a handshake

of generations.

That was one of the last times

I filmed with Grandma Hulda.

Soon, she too would pass away.

It's a generational

shift in my family.

But from time to time,

I can meet them

all once again.

I can still revisit

the way light reflects off

Grandpa Jon here.

And Arni.

And Disa.

[Andri] Hi Grandma.

[Jon] It's

then that I realized,

it's the same with

people as with flowers.

They wither into puffballs

and spread their seeds.

But from the root,

new life grows.

[Andri] I didn't record

much from their funerals,

only a couple of clips.

[Eilin] ...but I think it's good

for me to see her like this.

[somber music playing]

[waves lapping gently]

[Andri] What jacket

are you wearing, Hlynur?

- Grandpas jacket.

[Andri] Yeah, nice.

[Hlynur] The

jacket of the plains.

- Go!

[reflective music playing]

[Andri] I want you to see

how our lives move in rhymes.

Funerals live in sunsets.

Birthdays in sunrises.

Weddings live in

fellow creatures.

Our summer migrations

live in streams.

Harvests in the floodplains.

All this time, nature keeps

records all around us.

In these cycles

of time and water,

I feel a direct connection

to all ancestors and

to all descendants.

But our time is unlike

any time before.

[water trickling]

[wind]

[wind]

[rain falling]

[raindrops]

The singers of the swan

songs are wrestled down by Time.

The new era erases the

footsteps of our rhymes

The only way to keep the verses

of the mother tongue alive...

...is to put this into

the mouths of children

[Andri] Hlynur.

[Andri] This rima that lulled

my son to sleep is an elegy,

a goodbye to the life

the singer held dear.

She urges the listener to

care for what still remains.

Her words of sorrow traveled

into a future that, to her,

seemed foreclosed, but

they still reached me.

[somber music playing]

I had the honor to write

the text on this plaque.

And it's a strange situation

for a writer to write,

in copper, something that

will outlast all paper.

It will even last

longer than this stone.

This is pointing inwards,

and it's also pointing

into the deep future.

And so, people come up here,

and they can

look at the horizon.

But they will also

look at the words,

which we ask here

on this plate,

is that we acknowledge that

we know what is happening.

And we know what

needs to be done,

but only those that will

read the words will know

if we actually stood up

to that challenge that

we were given.

[pensive music playing]

Standing in the place

where the ice once was,

I look across the valley to

the neighboring mountain.

A thick patch of ice,

for now, still a glacier,

is moving slowly down the slope.

[Andri] Hey,

what are you doing?

Its out of focus.

- I know, very out of focus.

Wasn't it supposed

to be in focus?

It's not focusing.

[Andri] Before Hulda died,

my kids were becoming

the camera people.

We helped Hulda in the

garden many afternoons.

[Hlynur] Here it comes.

[Andri] What do

you think about time?

[Hulda] Time?

- Yes.

[Hulda] Time

passes incredibly fast.

There's always plenty to do.

I never feel alone.

And I often just

start talking...

I feel like he is sitting

in the chair next to me.

We've had a very enjoyable life.

It's good to have the memories.

I start to smell the

glacier in April

and I look forward to going.

But now it's been a

long time since I went.

I would need to go up

with a plane, I think.

[water rushing]

[emotional music playing]

[Andri] I cannot

send you a glacier,

but at least I

can send you this:

A portal to a time when

glaciers are still alive,

held open so they

can continue to be.

I wish in some way I could

know how you received it,

but only time will tell.

[singing rima in Icelandic]

[singing rima in Icelandic]

[singing rima in Icelandic]

[singing rima in Icelandic]

[singing rima in Icelandic]