Sometimes we must limit ourselves to the media to explore a country and its culture because we cannot afford to travel there.

If you have always wanted to get some insight into Iceland and its nature, culture etc. then you will most certainly be delighted by my little list of rather short video clips and documentaries about Iceland.

Needless to say the list is far from complete.

If you are looking to be blown away by stunning landscapes and breathtaking nature then you should follow the following links:
Icelandia is a time-lapse video by Doug Urquhart mostly about the Northern Lights featuring among other sites the famous glacier lagoon Jökulsárlón.

Film maker Enrique Pacheco stated “Iceland is the place where the light is made” and his short clip Raw Lightscapes stuns with visuals of Icelandic nature in the most amazing light.

Gunnar Konraðsson's Iceland [interesting music] offers not only beautiful landscape shots but also an intriguing sound. One can really imagine oneself being right here in Iceland.

Midnight Sun in Iceland (by Scientifantastic) and Legend (by Henry Jun Wah\Evosia) are both about the midnight sun phenomenon that occurs in Iceland during the Arctic summer. Both films show breathtaking time lapses of the country during that time.

If you are not so much into serene landscapes but more into lava and natural disasters then you should pay attention to the following links.

Both clips titled Eyjafjallajökull, the first by Sean Stiegemaier, and the second by Marc Szeglat feature the unpronounceable volcano and its eruption of 2010 showing the majestic ash cloud and the lava spitting crater.

Equally impressive is the video footage of the Grimsvötn eruption with a black ash plume and lightning shot by Jón Gústafsson.

The next film category is about culture.

A short documentary with the simple title Iceland shot by Adrien Dezalay gives a very interesting, intimate insight into the society of Iceland. Shot in summer 2009, young Icelanders talk about their country and spill the beans about things you might not find in a guide book.

In SeriousFather’s documentary Iceland: Beyond Sigur Rós it’s all about music. It celebrates and explores Iceland’s dynamic and diverse contemporary independent music scene and delights its viewers with interviews with the editor in chief of the Reykjavík Grapevine, Haukur Magnússon, Ólafur Arnalds, the rising star among Iceland’s composers and music producers, and Pétur Úlfur Einarsson and Hafsteinn Michael Guðmundsson, the founders of online music distributor Gogoyoko. The documentary is also packed with various sound bites of local bands that are en vogue such as For A Minor Reflection, Mugison and Seabear and is a must for the lovers of Icelandic music.

During my research I came upon an episode of the very peculiar U.S. television series Live And Let Drive documenting Icelandic car culture and especially the local formula off-road.

By the way, if you want to know more about Icelanders and their politicians, I recommend watching this interview with Jón Gnarr. Jón is a famous comedian in Iceland and was also elected Mayor of Reykjavík in 2010. This highly entertaining and clever interview is related to the documentary Gnarr which tells the story of the mayoral election and provides a lot of insight into society of Iceland

Katharina Hauptmann – katha.hauptmann@gmail.com