Time and Water
Time and Water, a National Geographic documentary film inspired by Andri Snær Magnason’s 2019 non-fiction On Time and Water, directed by Sara Dosa, premiered at the Sundance Festival on 27th January 2026.
Facing the death of his country’s glaciers and the loss of his beloved grandparents, Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason turns his archives into a time capsule to hold what is slipping away — family, memory, time, and water.
How do you say goodbye to what you never thought you could lose? That’s the question Magnason grapples with in Sara Dosa’s ambitious new project following her 2022 Oscar Nominated Fire of Love. Tasked to write the eulogy for Okjökull, the first glacier to be declared dead due to climate change, Magnason reflects on how glaciers create an archive of deep time within their ice over millions of years. Likening this idea of the depth of time to intergenerational memory, he sets out to pass along the stories of his grandparents for future generations, before they too vanish. Drawing from an evocative mix of photographs, home movies, myths, songs, and folk tales, Time and Water is at once an elegy for what we’ve lost and an attempt at cinematic time travel to retain it.
DIRECTOR: Sara Dosa
PRODUCERS: Shane Boris, Elijah Stevens, Jameka Autry, Sara Dosa
SCREENWRITERS: Sara Dosa, Jocelyne Chaput, Erin Casper, Andri Snær Magnason
CO-PRODUCERS: Andri Snær Magnason, Heather Millard
ADDITIONAL PRODUCER: Halldóra Jóhanna Þorláksdóttir
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS: Natalia Fuentes, Freyja Kristinsdóttir
NARRATED BY: Andri Snær Magnason
EDITOR: Erin Casper, Jocelyne Chaput, Mark Harrison
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Pablo Alvarez-Mesa
ANIMATOR: Lucy Munger
COMPOSER: Dan Deacon
CONTACT: Nadia Ahmadein, Nadia.Ahmadein@natgeo.com
RUNTIME: 90 min
WORLD PREMIERE: 27th January, 2026, Sundance Festival
COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN: Iceland, United States
LANGUAGES: Icelandic, English
COMPANY: National Geographic Documentary Films
PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Sandbox Films, Signpost Pictures
“Time and Water helps us understand the environment through the energetic devotion of the people who inhabit it … stands as a stirring record of human hopes and regrets.” — Roger Ebert .com
★★★★ — International Cinephile Society
“Magnason and Dosa have crafted a deeply personal, monumental documentary, in moments big and small, to leave for future generations. — Next Best Picture
“Grade: A” — Indie Wire
“Magnason’s words and images play with each other perfectly, building a bittersweet gnawing at the heart that will resonate with most everybody. Despite its lost memories and lost glaciers and change ecosystems, there is so much optimism here.” — The Film Stage
” … a comforting, ravishing, poignant examination of what we define as the wonders of our lives” — Awardswatch
” … sweeping, heartbreaking and hopeful in equal measure … a stunning meditation” — Salt Lake City Weekly
” … an emotionally rich documentary with brilliant visuals. It’s already the most gorgeous documentary of the year” — Sunshine State Cineplex
