The Day Iceland Stood Still: A new feature documentary about 12 hours that sparked a revolution
- Icelandic Roots
- Apr 26
- 3 min read
by Pamela Hogan | Director | The Day Iceland Stood Still
A new feature documentary about 12 hours that sparked a revolution
"The Day Iceland Stood Still is a Worldwide Cri de Coeur!"
--Canada’s The Globe & Mail
It all started with a family trip to Iceland. When my husband and son jumped out of the car one day to explore with their cameras, I leafed through the Lonely Planet Guide and found a mention of Iceland’s 1975 “Women’s Day Off” – the crisp Fall day when 90% of Iceland’s women walked off the job and out of their homes, bringing their country to its knees and sparking a revolution that’s catapulted the island nation to the “best place in the world to be a woman” today.
My head basically exploded. How could you get 9 out of 10 women anywhere to do the same thing at the same time? And how could the world not know about this incredible story?
Thus began a 7-year journey that resulted in our feature documentary, THE DAY ICELAND STOOD STILL, that’s now in the midst of a global roll-out. Screening at festivals all over the world to sold-out crowds, standing ovations, and great press, we’ve seen how this hopeful story resonates with viewers and we’ve been honored with numerous awards, including our most recent: the Audience Award at Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Interviewing the women who created and lived this moment has been the joy of a lifetime. “Did you hate men?” I asked activist Vilborg Dagbjartsdóttir. “No!” she laughed, “we LOVED our male chauvinists. We just wanted to change them a little!”
Decades later, the women’s memories are still incredibly vivid. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the
world’s first democratically-elected female head of state, recalls that she dreamed as a child of becoming the captain of a ship but was told “No no dear, you can’t – because you’re a girl.” Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Guðrún Erlendsdóttir remembers being discouraged from going to law school because, “You’ll be married before you’re 18!”
The film interweaves present-day interviews, archival footage, and beautifully drawn sequences by our brilliant animator, Joel Orloff, who brings the spirit and playfulness of these young women’s hopes and dreams to life. And our incredible composer, Margrét Rán, channeled their voices in her powerful score. I’m struck that both Joel and Margrét were in their late 20s when they worked on our film—just the age of Iceland’s feminist activists when they were changing the world.
The project has been a wonderful cross-cultural collaboration. In the first days of research, people I reached out to in Iceland suggested I contact acclaimed Icelandic filmmaker Hrafnhildur (Hrabba) Gunnarsdóttir. We met for coffee one day and just “clicked.” Throughout production and post-production, we’ve come to feel that the combination of our insider’s/outsider’s perspectives has enriched the storytelling. And we both have a personal connection to this narrative. In 1975, as a young girl, Hrabba stood in Lækjartorg Square with her mother and tens of thousands of women on the Women’s Day Off and thought that the next day, “everything would change, and men and women would be equal.” At that same moment, the women’s movement was in full swing in the U.S. and my feminist mom was dragging me to the Massachusetts State House after school to lobby for the Equal Rights Amendment. Well, the ERA never passed, and today the U.S. ranks a dismal 43rd on gender equality, while Iceland has ranked #1 for 15 years in a row and is the world’s only country to have closed over 90% of its gender gap and committed to reaching full equality by 2030.
I think it’s fair to say that the through-line of both Hrabba’s and my careers has been “If you want a better world, tell a better story.” Just last year the President of Iceland honored Hrabba with the Order of the Falcon, the Knights Cross, for her body of work raising awareness in the field of equality.
Irish civil rights leader Bernadette Devlin observes, “It’s not that women are written OUT of history. It’s that they’re never written IN.”
As this incredible story soars out into the world in 2025—the 50th anniversary of the transformative Women’s Day Off—we hope it inspires people everywhere to re-imagine the possible.
We thank Sunna Furstenau and Iceland Roots for your support of this project from early days. It means the world!
As our festival rollout and global impact screenings continue, Rise & Shine World Sales
is moving forward with international distribution. If you’d like to set up a community
