Nýja Bíó

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.

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.

In this documentary we get to know the Icelandic writer Einar Már Guðmundsson who won the Nordic price for literature in 1995. Einar Már Guðmundsson is one of the best known writers in Iceland and his works have been translated into english and the other Nordic languages. Besides his books of prose and poetry he has also written film manuscripts and in the documentary we see, among interviews with the writer himself and commentators on him and his work, clips from the films.

The documentary illustrates the northward drift of contaminated sea water through streams and currents, and the unforeseen consequences of such pollution on the delicately balanced ecosystem of the North Atlantic. The film reminds us of the damage already done, by oil an toxic waste, to the wildlife of enclosed seas such as the North Sea and the Baltic. During the last years, environmental issues have become increasingly important world-wide. To the people of Iceland, a small nation whose economy is based on the fishing industry, it is of vital importance to keep a close watch on the condition of its nearest environment, the northern seas.