Future of Hope

Everything bubbles to the surface in its purest form: lava, spouting geysers and the untouched hilly landscape that stretches out as far as the eye can see. The banking crisis hit Iceland hard, but not everyone here considers it to have been a disaster: of all people, it is a bankrupted entrepreneur who says, "It's the best thing that could happen to the soul of Iceland. We had lost ourselves in greed." So keep your spirits up: in the words of Vala Ragnarsdottir from the University of Iceland, her country is "the best place to be when the energy crisis hits." The opportunities for sustainable development are boundless. All that is required is a shift in mentality, a shift from importing nearly all the population's food to installing greenhouses on a volcano. Director Henry Bateman of presents Icelanders who are leading their compatriots in a new way of thinking. Take Gudjon Mar Gudjonsson, from the Ministry of Ideas, a platform for Icelanders who want to get things back under their control. Images of the spectacular Icelandic landscape are intercut with interviews that strike a hopeful chord. As parliamentarian Katrin Jakobsdottir says, we can become a world leader, if we use our opportunities."