We find ourselves in 1918 and even from Reykjavik the spewing fire from Katla, the volcano, is seen, painting the sky day as well as night. Despite natural disaster, lack of coal and war in the great world outside it, life in the capital continues as usual. The Icelanders prepare themselves for independence.

Moon Stone is 16 and lives for the moving pictures shown in the town’s cinema. Asleep he lives his own dream-cut versions of movies seen, threads of his own life woven into the films’ fabric. Awake he walks on the social periphery.

The Spanish flue invades Reykjavik, thousands become sick and more than two hundred die. The pandemic decimates the city and shatters the safety of a homely daily life, replacing it is a reality in a darker hue.

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“Mánasteinur” (Moon Stone) is an exceptional work weaving disparate worlds – movies, sex, a pandemic and a nation’s struggle for independence – into a beautiful and coherent story.