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The Importance of Being Icelandic | |
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Directed by | Jon Gustafsson |
Written by | Jon Gustafsson Olga McVarrish Caelum Vatnsdal |
Produced by | Marc Stephenson |
Narrated by | Jon Gustafsson |
Production company | Marble Island Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 42 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
The Importance of Being Icelandic is a 1998 documentary film by the filmmaker Jon Gustafsson (born in Iceland and living in Canada) that traces the steps of three Icelandic Canadians on a different quest of discovering their Icelandic heritage by going to Iceland. In addition to their time in Iceland, he returns with them to Canada and captures their reactions of the Islendingadagurinn celebrated each year at Gimli. The contrasts in perspective between his viewpoint on Canadian culture and that of three Icelandic-Canadians on a quest for their ancestral heritage is at the centre of the documentary.
Erik Thorvaldsson, known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer, described in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first European settlement in Greenland. Erik most likely earned the epithet "the Red" due to the color of his hair and beard. According to Icelandic sagas, Erik was born in the Jæren district of Rogaland, Norway, as the son of Thorvald Asvaldsson; to which Thorvald would later be banished from Norway, and would sail west to Iceland with Erik and his family. During Erik's life in Iceland, he married Þjódhild Jorundsdottir and would have four children, with one of Erik's sons being the well-known Icelandic explorer Leif Erikson. Around the year of 982, Erik was exiled from Iceland for three years, during which time he explored Greenland, eventually culminating in his founding of the first successful European settlement on the island. Erik would later die there around 1003 CE during a winter epidemic.
The Rural Municipality of Gimli is a rural municipality located in the Interlake Region of south-central Manitoba, Canada, on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg. It is about 75 kilometres (47 mi) north of the provincial capital Winnipeg. The rural municipality's population in the 2016 Canadian Census was 6,181, making it the 12th largest rural municipality by population. The RM of Gimli has an area of 318.75 km2 (123.07 sq mi), making it the sixth smallest rural municipality by area.
The Distant Early Warning Line, also known as the DEW Line or Early Warning Line, was a system of radar stations in the northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the north coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska, in addition to the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It was set up to detect incoming bombers of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and provide early warning of any sea-and-land invasion.
Library and Archives Canada is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. The LAC reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
Icelandic Canadians are Canadian citizens of Icelandic ancestry, or Iceland-born people who reside in Canada.
Arborg is a town located along the Icelandic River in Manitoba. The community is located 103 kilometres north of Winnipeg, at the junction of Manitoba Highways 7 and 68, in the Interlake Region of Manitoba, Canada. The town is surrounded by the Municipality of Bifrost - Riverton and has a population of 1,279 as of the 2021 Canadian census.
Mississippi Cold Case is a 2007 feature documentary produced by David Ridgen of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about the Ku Klux Klan murders of two 19-year-old black men, Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, in Southwest Mississippi in May 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Summer. It also explores the 21st-century quest for justice by the brother of Moore. The documentary won numerous awards as a documentary and for its investigative journalism.
Kluane / Wrangell–St. Elias / Glacier Bay / Tatshenshini-Alsek is an international park system located in Canada and the United States, at the border of Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia.
Jon Gustafsson is an Iceland born film director and photographer. The Icelandic spelling of his name is Jón Gústafsson. Best known for directing the Canadian documentary film Wrath of Gods, starring Gerard Butler, Wendy Ord, Sarah Polley, Paul Stephens and Sturla Gunnarsson. He grew up in Iceland where he started his career as a television performer before studying filmmaking at Manchester Polytechnic and directing for film and theatre at CalArts where he was mentored by the legendary Ealing Studios director Alexander Mackendrick. Wrath of Gods was his second documentary for CBC Newsworld, the first one was The Importance of Being Icelandic. He immigrated to Canada where he directed the low-budget feature film Kanadiana and the music video Brighter Hell for the Canadian rock band The Watchmen. In 2011 Jon Gustafsson produced the award winning short film In A Heartbeat, directed by Karolina Lewicka, through his production company Artio Films. He co-wrote and co-directed the feature film Shadowtown with Karolina Lewicka.
Quest for Fire is a 1981 prehistoric fantasy adventure film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, written by Gérard Brach and starring Everett McGill, Ron Perlman, Nameer El-Kadi and Rae Dawn Chong. The Canadian-French co-production is a film adaptation of the 1911 Belgian novel The Quest for Fire by J.-H. Rosny. The story is set "80,000 years ago", with a plot concerning the struggle for control of fire by early humans.
At the beginning of World War II, Iceland was a sovereign kingdom in personal union with Denmark, with King Christian X as head of state. Iceland officially remained neutral throughout World War II. However, the British invaded Iceland on 10 May 1940. On 7 July 1941, the defence of Iceland was transferred from Britain to the United States, which was still a neutral country until five months later. On 17 June 1944, Iceland dissolved its union with Denmark and the Danish monarchy and declared itself a republic, which it remains to this day.
Icelandic is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Since it is a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely related to Faroese, western Norwegian dialects, and the extinct language Norn. It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages and is more distinct from the most widely spoken Germanic languages, English and German. The written forms of Icelandic and Faroese are very similar, but their spoken forms are not mutually intelligible.
Gimli is an unincorporated community in the Rural Municipality of Gimli on the west side of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada.
The Mysterious Moon Men of Canada is a Canadian short film, directed by Colin Brunton and released in 1988.
Money Minters is a Canadian short documentary film, directed by Ted De Wit and released in 1958. Sponsored by INCO and the Royal Canadian Mint, the film documents the process of making a coin from the initial mining of metal ore at Sudbury to the coin's final production at the Royal Canadian Mint.
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Hope Frozen is a 2019 Thai documentary film directed and co-written by Pailin Wedel, together with Nina Ijäs, and released by 2050 Productions. It follows a Thai couple who, after their three-year-old daughter dies of brain cancer in 2015, decide to have her body cryogenically preserved. Hope Frozen premiered at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival 2019, where it won the Best International Feature Documentary award, and was shown at several documentary film festivals.
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