SYNOPSIS
Set in a Reykjavík nursing home, this tender, humanistic film observes the quiet rituals of daily life as seasons turn from winter to summer and back again. Within the stately walls of a timeworn building—both an institution and a home—elderly residents live out their final chapter. Some have lived nearly a century; beyond this home, nothing awaits but a return to the earth. Yet even here, where the end is certain, life tenaciously endures for as long as it possibly can.
REVIEW
Set in a nursing home in Reykjavík, the film quietly observes its elderly residents across the changing seasons. Rather than centering on a single figure or dramatic event, it lingers on the textures of daily life—on moments of feeling, preference, and movement. Depending on personality, companionship, and the body’s degree of frailty, these routines may be still or full of small variations: a resident lying in bed with a headset on, another carefully making the bed and setting fresh flowers by the pillow, a husband painting his wife’s nails, someone in a wheelchair dancing with their hands to music, or an elder returning to the communal dining room after a long absence to exchange greetings. Through these layered vignettes, the film uncovers a rhythm of life that is at once personal, multi-faceted, and universal.
Shot on analog 16mm, it forgoes the convenience of endless digital retakes for the singular, tactile presence of celluloid—capturing the “now” as an unrepeatable moment. In its grain and warmth, the film stock subtly mirrors the bodies it records. Here, the final stage of life is not framed as a slow wait for death, but as a phase of living—steadily, presently, in this very moment. Early on, when a resident asks what the point of filming is, the answer is simple: it is a film about “life.” Quiet landscapes, the shifting light between day and night, the turning of the seasons—by following the residents’ movements and the flow of their shared spaces, the film offers a contemplative, unadorned encounter with a stage of life that awaits us all.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
Grund, an elderly home in is a place where I work alongside my filmic work. For the film it was always important to me that the protagonists of the film where people I look after on a daily basis. Our relationships are grounded in trust and many of them I have followed to the very end. I find that the ethical and philosophical question of how we say goodbye to this life very important, when life starts to wither away, always keeping in mind that there is life before death.
CONTACT
IN PERSPECTIVE (only for festivals)
johannes@inperspective.film
