In Time And Water, Icelandic writer and filmmaker Andri Snær Magnason tells a story—conducted by Fire Of Love director Sara Dosa, once again blending personal relationships and our relationships with the world around us—framed as a time capsule. A joint eulogy for a “dead” glacier and a brief history of Magnason’s own pioneering glaciologist grandparents, this dense and decades-spanning collection of home videos combines with stunning, perspective-granting nature footage (at times, Time And Water does for ice what Architecton did for rocks) to sing a dirge for humanity and the world it disrespects, both declining at a similar unchecked rate.
Recent years have seen environmentally concerned filmmakers spinning poetic, loving odes to Captain Planet’s constituent elements, all tainted by human-driven climate change. Dosa’s work is intent on adding Heart to the mix, whether she’s dealing with Fire or Water, both of which happen to be of paramount importance to Iceland. In paying his respects to Okjökull—or Ok glacier (a short film initially documenting its demise is titled Not Ok)—Magnason summarizes this interconnectivity. He’s commissioned to inscribe a gravestone for the glacier, posing the plaque as “a letter to the future,” speaking to the next generations as his own predecessors speak to him in this film through memories and mementos, brightly colored family photos and equally colorful anecdotes.
“Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier,” Magnason writes in metal. “In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”
A few hundred years isn’t so long. Okjökull “lived” to be 700. So, how many human lifetimes does our environment have left? The pulse of legacy beats throughout the film, reverberating through Magnason’s throaty narration, archival recordings of rímur song-poems, and Dan Deacon’s awestruck electronic score. Through postcard-perfect images of Iceland’s stark and harsh landscapes, as well as close-ups of the kaleidoscopic ice formations that help define them, Time And Water moves from past to present in dribs and drabs—Magnason’s family aging alongside with the imperceptible constancy of a glacial melt. Honeymooners picnicking on a glacier become senior citizens quietly enjoying each other’s company in their side-by-side armchairs. Icicle-sharp scientists find their memories slipping, their bodies betraying them. Entropy, change. There isn’t any stopping them. But if the love between Magnason’s grandparents can persist, can influence the love he passes on to his children, and the love he holds for his homeland, then there is something to be said about the perseverance and impact of memory.
It’s a touching idea, to memorialize the tactile and ancient things lost to climate change, and all the more moving when linked to the most intimate losses all of us will one day face. Dosa’s film—which she wrote alongside Magnason, Jocelyne Chaput, and Erin Casper—sometimes strains a bit too visibly to connect this theme, becoming so enraptured with the encapsulating power of ice that the film protests too much about its own profundity. But even if you doubt your capacity to get teary-eyed at the joint thoughts of their loved ones and natural resources fading away in tandem, Time And Water will melt even the coldest heart.
Director: Sara Dosa
Writer: Sara Dosa, Jocelyne Chaput, Erin Casper, Andri Snær Magnason
Release Date: May 29, 2026
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