“Voices from the past howl while a huge white sheet covers the ice mass of a glacier, like a shroud over the corpse of a dead son.” Rafa Molés Vilar expressed of his latest project, La Pietà, a Spanish/Icelandic/Lithuanian co-pro, during his January 24 FIPADOC pitch.
The film is co-directed with Pepe Andreu Ibarra and follows the Björn siblings who lived on an isolated farm in Iceland at the foot of the largest glacier in Europe. They did not marry and had no children, but before anyone had conceived of the idea of climate change, the brothers set about dedicating their lives to study of their glacier and the nature that surrounded them.
“There is something fascinating, overwhelming, and almost mystical about standing in front of a glacier. It’s the closest thing to when we directors believed in God as children. It’s something beautiful and it’s powerful. And when you have been fortunate enough to experience it, you see it for the rest of your life,” enthuses Vilar.
Exploring the remote farmhouse where the siblings lived, the directors find the religious image of La Pietà hanging in the kitchen. A 16mm film reel from 1950 is also uncovered, showing footage of a life that no longer exists, a life that ‘melts between our fingers,’ according to the synopsis.
Thanks to the siblings’ meticulous recording of the world around them, the filmmakers find butterfly collections, books, photos and homemade artefacts, including a boat for exploring the ice. The project synopsis explains how the film shows the siblings in these same rooms, using the crampons to climb the glacier, rowing the boat across the lake. The plan is to use observational film alongside found footage from the past to create an observational narration of the present.
This will include footage of the shrouds that are used to cover glaciers in an attempt to protect them and decelerate their melting. The filmmakers assert that this may seem ridiculous in the face of impending tragedy, but the image also gave them their title, La Pietà, a representation of the hopelessness, and the death of one of nature’s most awe-inspiring phenomena.
The synopsis extols that we, as a species, owe much to the glaciers. It was the Ice Age that allowed humans to become the dominant species on Earth. However, this phantasmagorical and almost religious journey to try to protect the glacier from heat and slow its death is ‘nothing more than the shame of having to cover with a shroud a son that no one could save in time.’
The SUICAfilms project is co-produced with Axfilms (Iceland) and Studios Nominum (Lithuania) and is at advanced development stage, with a mooted delivery date of September 2024. The projected budget is €315,000, with €119,300 still to be raised. So far, a clutch of supporters have confirmed funds, including the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (Spain), the Valencian Institute of Culture (Spain), SUICAfilms, Distributor Filmin (Spain) and Kvískerjasjódur (Iceland).
It’s a story that the filmmakers are determined to tell. “The Björn Farm itself will be a gateway linking the stories from the past with the present place where they live and where things have changed so dramatically. Through them we travel through time and through losses, and through the ice. In the spring, we intend to go back to Iceland to show the president what’s happening.”
