Time and Water: Sara Dosa Directs New National Geographic Documentary

National Geographic’s "Time and Water" Weaves Personal and Planetary Grief at Sundance Premiere

The new documentary explores the intersection of personal grief and global climate change through the archives of an Icelandic writer.

National Geographic Documentary Films is set to premiere Time and Water at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. This new feature from Oscar-nominated director Sara Dosa transforms a personal archive into a universal warning.

What’s Happening:

Produced by National Geographic Documentary Films, Time and Water has been named an Official Selection for the Sundance Film Festival.
Time and Water follows celebrated Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason as he confronts two simultaneous tragedies: the vanishing of his country’s glaciers and the passing of his beloved grandparents.
Facing these losses, Magnason decides to turn his personal archives into a time capsule.
The film documents his effort to capture what is slipping away, weaving together themes of family, memory, time, and water.

The Story Behind the Film:

Sara Dosa, previously acclaimed for her work on Fire of Love, returns to explore the elemental forces of nature, this time focusing on the fragile state of ice.
The narrative is driven by Magnason's unique perspective, bridging the gap between scientific data and emotional reality.
By drawing parallels between the finite nature of a human life and the geological lifespan of glaciers, the film attempts to make the abstract concept of climate change intimately relatable.
It suggests that the water holding the memories of the past is the same water that will define the future, creating a continuous loop of history and responsibility.

The Letter to the Future

While Time and Water focuses on Magnason's family and archives, the writer is perhaps best known globally for a specific act of memorialization that serves as a spiritual predecessor to this film.
In 2019, Magnason wrote a eulogy for Okjökull, the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier due to climate change.
A copper plaque was installed on the site, titled "A Letter to the Future."
The text addresses future generations, stating that we know what is happening and what needs to be done, but only they will know if we did it.
This act of cementing a warning into the landscape highlights the same themes found in the new documentary: the desire to communicate across time when the physical world is rapidly altering.
The plaque ends with the global CO2 level at the time, 415ppm, a timestamp that, much like the film, serves as a marker of a specific moment in the history of the planet.

More National Geographic:

What We're Covering

Fun & Games

National Geographic’s "Time and Water" Weaves Personal and Planetary Grief at Sundance Premiere

Thank You!