Lögberg-Heimskringla - 22.04.2005, Blaðsíða 7

Lögberg-Hefhnskringla • Föstudagur 22. apríl 2004 • 7
after retiring
Gail Einarson-McCleery is from Gimli, Manitoba.
She worked for many years in television and radio
for CBC before she retired about 11 years ago. She
is the honorary lcelandic Consul in Toronto, a co-
editor of Fálkinn, the newsletter of the lcelandic Ca-
nadian Club of Toronto (ICCT) and the INL’s repre-
sentative in Ontario and Quebec, to name a few of
her volunteer duties. Steinþór Guðbjartsson spent
some time with her in Toronto.
Until she retired, Gail was
busy working and trav-
elling the world. When
she retired she started getting
involved in the ICCT. “I had
always been interested in my
heritáge, and when I retired I
was looking for something else
to do. My husband Eric had be-
come program director for the
club and he got me involved.
“I started working with the
newsletter, then I became vice-
president and president. During
my presidency I started the Ice-
landic National League’s Inter-
national Visits Program, which
organizes Icelandic artists’ vis-
its to North American Clubs to
perform or exhibit their art and
visits by North American artists
to Iceland. I was the director of
the program from the very be-
ginning and stepped down at
the INL convention in Edmon-
ton two years ago, or after I be-
came a Consul.
“I think that the program
has tied the clubs together be-
cause due to the program they
have had a common goal to
work on,” Gail says.
The year 2000 was ex-
tremely eventful in the Icelan-
dic community in North Amer-
ica. Gail says that the ICCT
decided to focus on Kinmount
and put up a monument there.
She and her husband Eric were
also instrumental in organiz-
ing a variety show, the Vikings
in Canada Gala in Toronto. “It
was successful, we had many
artists participating from across
the country, and this was a very
good experience,” she says. “It
was a chance to put the spot-
light on our writers, filmmak-
ers, musicians and visual art-
ists, and for them to get to know
each other.”
After she became a Consul,
Gail got the idea of screening
Icelandic films regularly. She
got in touch with the Icelandic
Film Centre and the Canadian
National Film Board and for al-
most two years they have shown
an Icelandic film the last Thurs-
day of every month. “This has
been a lot of work but we have
been able to see the main Ice-
landic films and people seem to
like that,” she says. “We have
been a part of the National Film
Board’s screening program.
They promote the screenings
and include our films in their
brochures. We did the program
the whole year last year but
this year there will be no films
screened in June, July and Au-
gust.”
Gail has participated in or-
ganizing the first Ice Fest that
takes place in Kinmount July
16, and she wants to develop a
program about Iceland to pres-
ent in schools in Toronto. “We
have so many talented people
who want to be involved in
such a program and hopefully
this will become a reality.”
On October 21, 1875 the
first Icelanders arrived at Wil-
low Point, just south of Gimli,
Manitoba. Soon Jón Ólafur
Jóhannesson was bom, the first
Icelander to be bom in New Ice-
land. His sister was María Jóhan-
nesdóttir, Gail’s patemal grand-
mother. Gail’s father is Stanley
Einarson from Minerva and
her mother was Herdís Helga-
son from Ámes. Gail is the
youngest of four siblings.
“My parents always spoke
Icelandic and my brother and
sisters spoke it until they went
to school. When I came along
all my siblings spoke English
so I never really leamed Icelan-
dic, but I’m studying it now. It
is never too late and with that in
mind I will be going to Snorri
Plus in Iceland this summer.
That will be my fifth visit to
Iceland.”
Oddsson’s Kaldaljós poses
troubling questions
David Jón Fuller
Knowledge of the future
can leave you chained to your
past.
At least, that’s the theme
of Hilmar Oddsson’s Kal-
daljós (Cold Light), screening
in Toronto this month. The
movie follows Grímur Her-
mundsson (Ingvar E. Sigurðs-
son), a 40-something man in
search of direction.
He enrols in an art class
taught by Linda (Ruth Ólafs-
dóttir), whom he quickly falls
in love with. While his ama-
teurish approach rouses the
scorn of his classmates — he
refuses to draw anyone whose
name he doesn’t know — his
childhood sketches fascinate
the teacher.
Grímur is haunted by
memories of his childhood,
which appear in flashbacks,
particularly images of a cata-
strophic avalanche.
His inability to face his
past, spent growing up in an
isolated fishing village, slowly
unravels Grímur’s present.
His relationship with Linda
spirals out of control, and it is
this which forces him to take a
hard look at himself.
The movie has an elegant
pace and beautiful photogra-
phy, all of which captures the
brooding nature of the main
character (played as a child by
Áslákur Ingvarsson). Linda,
as a foreigner, is an outsider
in many senses — she doesn’t
speak Grímur’s language, nor
does she understand his rela-
tionship to the mountian that
appears in so many of his
drawings.
The cast is superb, par-
ticularly Áslákur as the young
Grímur, whose premonitions
often come true.
Oddsson ends the movie
on a hopeful note, but the
question remains: if you knew
the future, would you still do
things you’d regret?

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