INTERVIEW with the Directors, Pepe Andreu and Rafa Molés
By Dimitra Kouzi
You describe the glacier as the true protagonist of La Pietà. How do you direct — and produce — a film in which the central character is neither fully human nor fictional, but a living entity fast disappearing?
It’s difficult to stand before the magnificence of a glacier and not feel that it is something far beyond an inert mass of ice. The ice moves; it groans, it speaks — you could almost feel that it sings. It holds physical particles of our history, oxygen our ancestors once breathed, entire universes trapped within its depths. For us, it is something overwhelming, almost mystical.
So for nearly two decades we have been searching, through cinema — our way of expressing ourselves — for a way to convey to the viewer the blend of beauty and pain we felt when we first stood before Vatnajökull over twenty years ago.
The idea was to treat the glacier as a living being: a vast and powerful being that is now dying. A being that moves, that speaks to us and that weeps; a being to love, to care for, and to mourn when we lose it.
The key to conveying that admiration and compassion for the glacier was discovering that there were many others like us, long before us. We learned the story of Flosi Björnsson and his brothers, who lived in isolation on their remote farm, looking after the glacier. Then we encountered the farm, which is still there, like a still life. Then Flosi’s texts and a 16mm film in which they appear exploring the glacier… And later the photographer Ragnar Axelsson and other characters who, like pilgrims — like us — have, for centuries, been drawn to the lament of Vatnajökull.
It is the human gaze that makes us human, and that humanises. So together, we look at the glacier as we would a wounded young person, like a whale stranded on the sand, like something more than a ruined cathedral… and we do so with the intention of awakening the viewer’s empathy, memory, and awareness.
What makes your film different from other films about climate change?
Beauty is the way. Beauty moves us, and it has moved human beings since our beginnings. It stirs us deeply, makes us react, and makes us act.
From the start, we never thought of making a film with climate change as the central focus, but rather a film about beauty and fascination — about something that moves us and that we are letting die. In fact, the film speaks more about human stupidity than about climate change.
We have all the information available about climate change. We have the data, the forecasts; we know the solution, and yet there is nothing to suggest that we will react as we should. Climate change overwhelms us — it seems too big, beyond our control. But beauty, stories, are something we all understand.
That is our small contribution: to make a film — what is within our power — just as our characters did before us. Beauty works on us, and on many others. We wanted to try. La Pietà is our small contribution to a global problem.
We live in a moment of both eco-anxiety and paralysis — we are mostly aware of the facts, yet often feel unable to act. In what way do you hope this film could counter that paralysis?
At one point in the film, Oddur Sigurðsson, a prominent retired glaciologist, speaks with Ragnar, a renowned photographer who has dedicated his work to showing the consequences of climate change for Arctic populations. Oddur tells him that we must find other ways to reach people and convey the urgency of this problem. Scientists have been precise, but they struggle — and are fully aware of how complex it is — to communicate these issues to the public. Oddur Sigurðsson places his faith in the idea that where science falls short, the work of artists can help.
This is how we would like the film to function. In this case, art can serve as a bridge between science and the public.
We all find it difficult to act because the meaning of what we are losing has faded; we have grown accustomed to hearing that there is a problem, yet we are unable to grasp its scale. This is where poetry comes in: to reveal, once again, the meaning of the catastrophe.
However, we do not feel there is pessimism in our film, but rather profound reflection, tough realism, and the belief that— throughout the history of art — the beauty of a still life has moved us and reminded us of our most humanistic side.
Flosi Björnsson and his siblings devoted their lives to the glacier long before climate discourse existed. What does their radical life choice reflect back to us today?
The legacy this family leaves us is an example to follow. Small actions within our reach can transform the world. Their example has moved scientists, artists, the current inhabitants of the valley, and us — to make this film.
Their relationship with everything around them, their awareness of being a natural part of the place they inhabited, and the interest they showed in their surroundings — the flowers, the insects — their desire to learn everything.
The siblings lived almost isolated from the world for most of the year, yet they studied glaciers, botany, geology, entomology… as self-taught learners (Flosi learned several languages on his own, with nothing but books and by listening to the radio), driven by love for the place where they lived. That way of understanding life and relating to nature is the legacy they leave us: to withdraw from the global noise, to look closely at what is right before our eyes, with attention, affection, delicacy, and hope.
You’ve referred to the film as a kind of ‘ghost story’. How did this spectral dimension influence both the storytelling and the production choices?
There is an unattainable dimension when you stand before the great wall of a glacier — something that goes beyond what our human mind can assimilate. You try to grasp, with all your senses and knowledge, what you see, what youhear, what you feel, but it’s impossible. It is overwhelming. That spectral dimension is powerful; it is there, if you are fortunate enough to stand on a glacier.
That is why we played with the idea of the ghost, understood in a contemporary sense: a familiar presence from the past, a benevolent spirit that encourages or warns us about what is happening. The farmhouse where the Björnsson family lived is not haunted, but it creaks; the wind slips through the cracks; and, in some way, the voices of those who lived there still resonate — voices from the past that howl like advice, like warnings.
All the Björnsson siblings have passed away. The handwritten texts we found by Flosi, with notes about daily life and his explorations, gave us the real words for that ghost. By reading them, we invoked his spirit and brought his voiceback to life — voiced in the film by the great Icelandic actor Ingvar E. Sigurðsson.
That is also why we filmed the empty farmhouse at different moments of the year: to show — and to hear — the passage of time, with characters whose shadows we barely see (we will all be shadows), focusing on small details capable of evoking it — a box of memories, personal objects they once touched, old paintings,
You had access to personal archives, even a 16mm reel from 1950. What responsibility did you feel when bringing these fragile memories back to life, and how did you balance preservation with reinterpretation?
When our friend and co-producer Ólafur Rögnvaldsson told us the story of the Björnsson family and we visited the farm, we were in shock — but discovering the 16mm footage undoubtedly pushed us to tell this story.
The old film showed us what we already knew from Flosi’s diaries: the family, the work on the farm, their expeditions to the glacier. But those images had enormous power on their own — almost spectral. It was fascinating and left us spellbound. We wanted to manipulate it as little as possible, to preserve it as we found it, without adding voice-over or ambient sound; only minimal music to help bring that past into the present and allow ourselves to be hypnotised by these images.
We do not believe it is a reinterpretation but a tribute; these frames were shot with a purpose similar to what we are filming today, and they are very valuable material for understanding how this family related to nature.
This respect also extends to the many photographs and personal objects we had access to, which play a fundamental role in the narrative — able to evoke a life and a way of acting that we seek to reframe, or to present as still lifes that function as an offering or an altar.
Sound plays a central role in this film. How did you conceive the sonic identity of the glacier, and at what stage did music and sound design become essential to shaping the film’s ‘voice’?
From the very beginning, we wanted to give life to the glacier and show it as a wounded being, infinitely beautiful. Sound design and music were fundamental to achieving that. We worked with Iván Martínez-Rufat (in charge of sound design) to transform the sounds of the glacier into a lament — into the cry of something that still retains life.
The farmhouse, too, takes on a life of its own. Together with Iván Martínez-Rufat and the wonderful Lithuanian foley team, we played with the idea that inside the house, the wood and the wind should sound like a ship adrift — a kind of ghost ship that carries with it all the life that once inhabited it.
To all of this we added Alberto Lucendo’s score, to create the great requiem the film becomes. Alberto embarked on an exciting sound research project, taking as reference the ideas we proposed (the beached whale, the ruined cathedral, the constant voice of the wind conveying a whispered message, or the running water — like blood), searching for instruments and melodies that would evoke those images and help develop the idea of this requiem.
You have spent many years working in Iceland and building close relationships there. How did this involvement impact the film? Did being insiders give you freedom, or did it increase your sense of responsibility?
Iceland is a place that captivated us more than twenty years ago. And we have not been able to stop going back ever since. This is our second film there, but it could easily have been the first.
When we discovered the country, each of us separately, we immediately felt that one day we would create something out of the glaciers.
From that love at first sight, and from the need to know more, our previous film Lobster Soup was born. That film allowed us to get very close to people and to build a special relationship with them. It also made us understand that we too — more than being part of the surroundings — were part of the problem. We arrived as tourists and, generally, behaved like predators. We have learned this from our capitalist way of life, but here we became aware of it and are willing to act. This is our responsibility.
Lobster Soup had an impressive international run, but among all the recognitions we have received, the one we are proudest of is being named adoptive children of the town of Grindavík, where the film takes place. Being welcomed as part of the story and the community has changed us. Iceland is not an exotic or remote place for us, but something closer to home.
You co-direct and co-produce your films. How does this collaboration function in practice? How do you divide and share creative and production responsibilities? How do you navigate divergence of views while maintaining a unified vision?
Sharing the direction of a film comes naturally to us. That is how we met, and almost without thinking about it, that ishow we made our first film — and we have grown into this way of working.
For us, it is an easy way to work, mainly because we start from a shared vision of what drives us to make a film and to tell it in a certain way. We are two minds sharing the same vision, and then we bring in other minds from the team. We talk things through a lot, and the film itself decides — sometimes immediately, and other times over time.
Our roles as directors and writers are constantly intertwined, and while we do divide certain tasks — sometimes one of us focuses more on writing and the other on editing — we are both involved in every decision about the film.
La Pietà embraces a contemplative, slow cinematic language. In a time of accelerated consumption and shrinking attention spans, how do you reflect on the future of cinema, particularly this kind of immersive, patient filmmaking?
Without a doubt, the future of cinema is uncertain. The current crisis goes beyond the industry and economics: we arewitnessing a flattening of narratives under the rule of algorithms and speed-driven consumption — a simplification of film language on a scale we have not seen before. Little by little, we are giving in to a culture of disposability, and the kind of cinema we have understood until now may increasingly survive as a form of cultural resistance rather than simply as a nostalgic trend. Resisting is a beautiful way to create.
What role does humour play in your film?
Director Rafa Molés, and Pepe Andreu, Thessaloniki Film Festival / Studio Aris Rammos
Humour is one of the most useful tools for expressing or communicating, but also one of the most difficult to articulate. For us it is especially difficult because of our, let’s say, “melancholic” nature, but we would like to have enough talent to use it more.
This film uses humour, but it is closer to satire or sarcasm, with the intention of ridiculing ourselves and the way human beings relate to nature today.
At a certain point, the camera seems to turn towards all of us. The tourists represent each and every one of us — consuming the glacier like insects devouring a corpse, moving through its entrails impassively. The sequence of tourists on the glacier taking selfies is funny, but it is also painful. It holds up a mirror to us: this is who we are; we laugh at ourselves, but it is profoundly bitter.
What do you hope audiences take with them?
We hope that fascination — the love and beauty of glaciers — becomes the spark that helps people wake up and take action.
Directors Pepe Andreu and Rafa Molés have been working together as writers and directors of documentary films since 2013. Their work has been selected at festivals such as San Sebastián, Visions du Réel, DOK.fest Munich, and Thessaloniki.
The film had its world premiere at the 28th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (2026) were it was awarded The “Human Values” Award of the Hellenic Parliament .
Want to watch it? La Pieta will continue its festival journey:
DocsBarcelona. May 9th 2026
Dok.Munich. May 10th 2026
Docs Valencia May 15th 2026
Krakow Film Festival May 31th 2026
Reykjavík International Film Festival 24th September 2026
Scannorama Lithuania 5th November 2026
Find more about it in the PRESS KIT
Arūnas Matelis their Lithuanian co-producer