The Journey Home is a new Icelandic documentary about the people living in the most remote shire in Iceland. We follow the photographer María Gudmundsdóttir, who was born and raised in Árneshreppur, throughout the film and see the livelihood of the people living in this shire. María shot most of the film from 2009 till 2014 and the author Vigdís Grímsdóttir took the majority of the interviews.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, relations between the former allied eastern and western powers deteriorated fast. Suddenly, the small island nation found itself in the midst of the ensuing “cold-war”, which it used to its full benefit to catapult into the modern world. A founding member of the NATO alliance, Iceland provided an important base for forward operations in protection of NATO’s northern flank and Scandinavia and the approaches to North America by U.S. and allied forces.

This film explores the five different Icelandic national costumes, including their meaning for people in earlier times and the influence they continue to have on contemporary Icelandic artists and designers.