The Seagull's Laughter

The Seagull's Laughter (Icelandic: Mávahlátur) is a 2001 Icelandic film directed by Ágúst Guðmundsson. It stars Ugla Egilsdóttir as Agga, an orphaned pre-teen distrusting of her cousin Freyja, played by Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir, who turns heads on her return from America, no longer the chubby teen that the Icelandic townspeople remember. Set around 1950, the story portrays a pivotal moment in Iceland’s recent history: newly independent, with the legacy of the Second World War still prominent, Iceland is modernising and internationalising. The film is set in Hafnarfjörður, now effectively a suburb of Reykjavík, then a fishing town outside it. It is a close adaptation of the novel Mávahlátur by Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir, published in 1995 by Mál og menning. It was Iceland's submission to the 74th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.