Of Horses and Men

Human romance and a passion for horses intertwine in this wildly beautiful, darkly funny equine tale from Iceland.

Benedikt Erlingsson’s darkly funny tale about the lives of a quirky, remote Icelandic community and the deeply intertwined and highly emotive relationships they hold with their horses. Unique, engaging and beautifully shot, it was Iceland’s 2014 Oscar submission and winner of the Best New Director award at the San Sebastián Film Festival.

Presented in a series of six interwoven vignettes, the film employs minimal dialogue to explore ideas of love, death and the primal instincts shared between humans and horses, elegantly emphasised by cinematographer Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson’s close-ups of horses with the owners’ face reflected in its eyes. No animals were harmed in the making of this film.