A special screening features three eligible films for the 98th Academy Awards: the tender relationship drama The Love That Remains, Icelands official entry for Best International Feature Film, and the Oscar-eligible shorts O (Iceland) and On Weary Wings Go By (Estonia).
The Love That Remains
Dir. Hlynur Plmason | Iceland/Denmark/Sweden/France, 2025 | 109 min
In Icelandic with English subtitles
Charting the gradual evolution of a family in the midst of an irreparable fracture, The Love That Remains is a poignant, crisply pointillistic domestic drama that observes lifes changes with humor and whimsy, set against the majestic, ever-shifting Icelandic landscape. Visual artist Anna (Saga Gararsdttir) and fisherman Magns (Sverrir Gunason) were teenage sweethearts but have recently grown apart, and Magns has moved out of the house. As long as the newly estranged parents put on a good face, the childrenand their adorable sheepdog Panda (who won the prestigious Palme Dog award at Cannes)seem to take the split in stride. Yet as Magns becomes increasingly alienated from his domestic life, harsh reality cant help but bubble to the surface.
Hlynur Plmasons follow-up to his austere 19th-century drama Godland is a constantly surprising film with an immaculate sense of framing and pacingand an evocative, dulcet piano score by Harry Huntdotted with idiosyncratic flights of fancy that never detract from the central emotional authenticity.
O
Dir. Rnar Rnarsson | Iceland/Sweden, 2024 | 19 min
In Icelandic with English subtitles
A fragile souls inner turmoil unfolds as he grapples with personal demons while pursuing a seemingly mundane goal, unveiling the profound human struggle within lifes simplicity. Praised as a deep, uncompromising leap into the abyss of humanitys self-destructive nature, O celebrates the battles we fight in the mundanity of everyday life.
On Weary Wings Go By (Linnud linud)
Dir. Anu-Laura Tuttelberg, Estonia & Lithuania, 2024 | 11 min. | No dialogue
In this animated wintery poem of Nordic nature, the sun moves low, and days shorten. Birds fly south, and porcelain animals and insects hide from the freezing wind and snow. Only a small porcelain girl wanders the abandoned landscape, with no way to get out.
