Swim for your life

2012 · 90 min · Documentary

The film follows the brave attempts of two men to be the first Icelander to swim the English Channel, the Mount Everest of swimmers, their failures and eventually the success of one of them. Interwoven with the story of the amazing endurance of these two men, is the history of swimming in Iceland and in particular the long and hard struggle to re-introduce the skill after it had been almost totally lost to this seafaring nation. By the 19th century it is reckoned that in the whole of Iceland no more than 6 individuals of a population of 50.000, knew how to swim. With references to the ancient Icelandic sages, we learn through staged scenes how a local hero took on and defeated the Norwegian kin in a bout of the popular Viking sport of sea wrestling and how a mother fled after her husband was viciously killed, swimming to land with her two children.

Directed by Jón Karl Helgason · Written by Jón Karl Helgason