Time and Water team launches awards series with story of a dead glacier

The team behind Time and Water opened Deadline's For the Love of Docs programme with a conversation about family, memory and a dead glacier.

Director Sara Dosa, an Oscar nominee for Fire of Love, appeared with producers Elijah Stevens and Jameka Autry after a screening of the film, according to Deadline. Their discussion kicked off the annual virtual series, which showcases documentaries in awards contention.

The film is a National Geographic documentary about Iceland's disappearing ice. It runs 93 minutes and is a United States-Iceland production.

Time and Water premiered on 27 January 2026 in Park City, Utah. It screened in the Premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival, the festival's showcase for new work from established directors, and was later named to the 2026 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival lineup, according to Deadline.

At its centre is Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason. He was asked to write an obituary for OK, also known as Okjokull. His work shapes much of the story.

Scientists had declared OK dead after it lost so much mass that it could no longer move under its own weight. The glacier was 700 years old, according to Sundance.

Magnason's obituary was inscribed on a copper plaque. It was fixed to a boulder once covered by OK's ice, marking the place where the glacier stood.

Dosa directs the film and also produces it. Shane Boris, an Oscar winner whose credits include Navalny and Fire of Love, is also a producer, Deadline reported.

What makes this stand out for a general viewer is the pairing of scales. One thread follows people and family history. The other follows ice measured in centuries. The plaque brings the two together in a single object that visitors can touch.