Hjálmtýr Heiðdal

In the Fossvogur Military Cemetery in Reykjavik Iceland there are 6 gravestones with the names of the crew of a Wellington bomber that in 1941 crashed into Svartahnjúk (Black Peak) mountain in the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in West Iceland. But the rescue team only found 4 bodies. The documentary Black Peak - a war story, tells us how the Second World War collided with the peaceful countryside in Eyrarsveit county and how the legend of the crew and the airplane have lived on for more than 70 years.

In September 2015 there were 400 years since the slaying of 32 Basque whalers in Iceland.

The scholar Sveinn Bergsveinsson, a Communist in the 1930s, was trapped in Berlin by the outbreak of World War II and forced to work for the Nazi propaganda machine. Returning to Iceland, sick with tuberculosis, he found himself branded by both sides of the cold war political divide and barred from academic work. In desperation, he emigrated to East-Germany where he became a respected professor. He always hoped to return home but died in East-Berlin in 1988, a year before the wall came down. He left behind a wealth of documents, photographs, film and voice recordings which form the basis of this narrative.

In Ófeigsfjord in North-West Iceland the old whetstone has been used to sharpen the knives for five generations. There are still some eccentrics like Pétur Guðmundsson who live on and use the resources as his forefathers have done over the centuries. Here people have lived from the earth’s resources for generations: farming, fishing, collecting birds’ eggs and gathering driftwood.

A documentary about the efforts of Björn Runólfsson to bring electricity to the countryside of Iceland.

The tiny village of Flateyri in North West Iceland is a community in crisis. The young people have moved away, the fish factory and the recording studio have been sold to make holiday homes, and one third of its residents are now Polish people who came only for the work. Nestled inside the West Fjords, this quaint outpost is perched upon a narrow finger of land which juts out into Önundarfjörður, situated well within striking distance to the fertile fishing grounds that ultimately gave rise to this settlement.

In recent years, various people working with "problem youths" have been experimenting with programmes that have come under the heading of "Survival Therapy". Among other things, the treatment involves exposure to a difficult environment. City kids are transferred from their traditional habitat to the desolate interior of the country where they have to tackle manifold problems. For instance, they plod long distances across rough terrain in all kinds of weather, carrying heavy rucksacks on their backs for several days. This documentary covers a tour by British and Icelandic youngsters of the Icelandic interior ruing the summer of 1983. The young people come from London, Bristol, Liverpool and Reykjavík. All are at odds with society and have records of drug abuse, delinquency and violence.

The Stained Glass Windows had been salvaged from Coventry’s medieval cathedral before it was bombed out by German forces but in 1942 they simply disappeared. Much later, it is discovered that they had found their way to Iceland. How did this happen? It is a mystery of conflicting stories, misplaced documents and confusing contradictions.

The story of a herring enterprise in Árneshreppur á Ströndum which began in 1934 with the construction of the country's biggest herring plant in the village of Djúpavík. The plant brought great prosperity to the community, in the mids of world depression. The film includes interviews with several people involved in this adventure as well as old films and photographs.

A documentary about the purebred Icelandic horse. All the horses featured in the film come from Kirkjubaer, where some remarkable horse breeding, quite unique in Iceland has been taking place since 1946. The film gives an account of the breeders and their work. The studs are shown in the pasture in different circumstances at all times of the year. Finally, the horses are shown with their riders, both on the race course and in the open, frequently in a magnificent landscape setting.

An unexpected submarine eruption south of Iceland created an island, Surtsey, and changed our perception of the Earth. The Black Island is the epic Saga of Surtsey. The film depicts the evolution of life and our fascination and fear of the world´s untamed and still unknown forces. Using unique archive material and new films from visits to the Black Island.

A documentary about the Icelandic artist Sverrir Haraldsson

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