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Five minutes in Greenland





Aningaaq is the name of a short film created as a companion to the much-better-known Gravity. It shows the people on the other side of a distress call that Sandra Bullock's character makes. She reaches a family in Greenland, and although she can't speak the language, there are a few moments of connection, as you'll see if you watch the movie:

Aningaaq (via the New York Times' Carpetbagger)

What mesmerizes me is the setting. While writing my first novel I spent a lot of time trying to understand what the landscape of Greenland would really feel like. I read books, looked at photographs, and interviewed scientists who had spent time there, and I still managed to get things wrong - for instance, I carefully researched timetables for sunrise and sundown, but failed to appreciate that during some months "sundown" means that the sun dips just below the horizon, so that it doesn't actually get completely dark, as I had written it. (How did I learn this? A sixth grader pointed it out to me during a school visit. He had been to Iceland.)

Warning: While the film includes a lovely shot of a team of Greenland's working dogs, there is also a brief but somber storyline involving one of them.

And here's the website for that first book of mine, First Light: www.firstlightbook.com

Here in the United States, the next twenty days are the darkest of the year. Wherever you are, I'm wishing you light.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I thought that the story was great. loved the setting in greenland.