HOMEWORKSERVICESABOUT
Contact Sunna at
sunna@bjartsyn.is
Directed and written by Anastasiia Bortuali
Based on a story by Sunna Guðnadóttir and Jón Ármann Steinsson Cinematographer Sebastian Ziegler
2026
Set against the backdrop of seismic unrest in Iceland, Þegar haustið hægir á sér is a quiet, atmospheric drama about memory, migration, and the quiet collapse of identity.
Mariam, a 35-year-old nurse and amateur photographer, wakes from a nightmare in her modest rental room. Haunted by echoes of conflict and displacement, she begins another day navigating her life as an immigrant caregiver in Iceland. She is assigned to care for Helga, an 80-year-old former opera singer suffering from dementia, and living with her daughter Guðný in a deteriorating home marked by tremors—both geological and emotional.
As the earth literally shakes around them, so do the foundations of the three women’s lives. Mariam develops photos in the red glow of dawn, Guðný tries to manage her mother’s slipping grip on reality, and Helga retreats into fragmented memories of love, youth, and the stage—waiting for her long-dead husband, Mundi, to return.
What begins as a job becomes something more for Mariam, whose quiet presence and empathy bridge a deep cultural divide. In a dreamlike garden scene beneath a gnarled apple tree, Helga and Mariam play a ghostly game of chess—past and present entwining. As Helga conjures fragments of her former life and Mariam quietly documents her fading glory, the boundaries between caregiver and companion begin to blur.
Þegar haustið hægir á sér is a lyrical meditation on fragility—of memory, of homeland, of time—and the fleeting human connections that emerge in the in-between spaces.