Frá Hong Kong til Raufarhafnar

Seventeen years ago, a high school class in Hong Kong rallied to send a birthday parcel to Brian, a classmate studying abroad in the remote Arctic village of Raufarhöfn. For me, the connection was personal because Brian and I share the same birthday. For nearly two decades, that isolated town lived only in Brian's vivid digital archives of photos and videos. In 2022, I journeyed to the tiny village of 200 people to see that world for myself.

In Raufarhöfn, I reconnected with the host family that once took Brian in, including Guðný, the former mayor, and Kristrún, the once teenager from Brian’s archives who is now a free spirited adult. The film weaves together Brian’s detailed digital memories with my Super8 footage of the modern Icelandic landscape. Through these layered visuals and shared stories, the search for our shared past reveals a universal truth about the pieces of ourselves we leave in the places we have outgrown.