Pamela Hogan’s documentary The Day Iceland Stood Still tells the story of the 24 hours that changed the future of the Nordic country’s women, enabling Iceland to become the place with the highest level of gender equality in the world for 14 years in a row. The feature’s festival run kicked off at Toronto’s Hot Docs, after which it continued to Reykjavík and Malmö’s Nordisk Panorama before playing at Ji.hlava IDFF last week in the Testimonies section.

The picture is divided into five main parts: the times of oppression; the early days of the Red Stockings movement; the preparations for the revolution; the historic Women’s Day Off on 24 October 1975; and the aftermath of these brave women’s fight in the years following those events and in today’s world.

Through a rather traditional – yet effective and emotional – directorial approach, Hogan manages to tell a compelling, fast-paced story that easily resonates with today’s audience. The documentary boasts talking heads, archive footage (mostly from the 1960s and 1970s), some sketchy animated sequences depicting flashbacks, and a few astonishing shots of Iceland’s natural environment, often accompanying the protagonists’ deeper reflections on the events they took part in.

In the first part, Hogan tells us how women in Iceland were only supposed to be happy housewives or underpaid workers at best. Some of the women starring in the doc, now at retirement age, reveal their apparently “impossible” dreams: working as a lawyer, becoming the captain of a ship or simply having their say. In one of the most striking scenes, we see one of the women telling us she used to work on a nearby farm. While the men were building a new stable, she was supposed to feed them and serve them coffee. One day, she approached them and noticed they were talking about politics. She started to say something but continued to be ignored. This episode, brought to life through animation, ends with the girl shrinking while being ignored by the farmers sitting at the table.

Things seemed to change on 1 May 1970, during a parade celebrating workers’ rights. That date marked the birth of the Red Stockings movement, which gradually became more structured and even hosted a man, Eirikur Gudjonsson, among its ranks.

More and more curious facts emerge – for example, one of the movement’s protests was set in Akranes. During a beauty pageant, the women showed up accompanied by a cow, arguing that the girls on stage were being treated like livestock. In 1975, Reykjavík hosted the International Women’s Conference, and the nationwide Day Off was thus scheduled for 24 October.

Hogan and her protagonists describe in detail the power of that strike, and how it left men upset yet surprised – for the first time, 90% of women took their well-deserved “Day Off”. Beds weren’t made, dishes had to be washed, and children needed caring for. TV stations turned into nurseries, where technicians were forced to broadcast cartoons to entertain their kids. Almost every business shut down or wasn’t operational, and some beautiful archive footage depicting empty spaces further highlights the “weird uniqueness” of that historic event.

In conclusion, Hogan’s message is loud and clear: that unforgettable day steered the country towards a brighter future. The young girl who dreamt of becoming a lawyer, Guðrún Erlendsdóttir, was the first woman to be appointed to Iceland’s Supreme Court and later served as its chief justice; the one who wished to sail a ship as a captain, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, served as Iceland’s prime minister for 16 years.

The Day Iceland Stood Still is a co-production between US-based Alternate Image Productions and Iceland’s Krumma Films. Rise and Shine World Sales is selling it internationally.