*This event is now sold out.*

Join us for a special screening of The Day Iceland Stood Still with President of Iceland Halla Tómasdóttir! H.E. Tómasdóttir will discuss her recollections of the historical events in the film and its relevance today with award-winning journalist Pat Mitchell following the screening.

When 90 percent of the women of Iceland walked off the job and out of their homes one fall morning in 1975 refusing to work, cook, or take care of the children, they brought their country to a standstill and catapulted Iceland to the “best place in the world to be a woman.” Told for the first time by the women themselves, and laced with playful animation, The Day Iceland Stood Still  is subversive and unexpectedly funny. “We loved our male chauvinist pigs,” recalls one of the activists, “We just wanted to change them a little!”

Filmed in a collaboration between U.S. director Hogan, who campaigned as a high school student in the 1970s with her activist mother to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, and Icelandic producer Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir, who at the age of seven accompanied her mother to the 1975 strike, the film features appearances by celebrities such as former Icelandic president Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the world’s first democratically elected female head of state, as well as music by Björk. Released in the lead-up to the strike’s 50th anniversary in 2025, the film’s message about the collective power of women to transform their society inspires viewers to reimagine the impossible.

This program is presented in the Curtis L. Carlson Distinguished Lecture Series.

“A worldwide cri de coeur…the overriding mood of the film is joy” (The Globe and Mail)

“A fascinating, captivating and humorous look at this inspirational movement, that’s a necessary watch today” (Yahoo News)