Together in isolation: the lockdown of the Faroe Islands (2021)

The Faroe Islands sit in the North Atlantic, roughly halfway between Norway and Iceland, with a population of around 54,000 people spread across eighteen islands. That combination of geographic isolation and small, tight-knit communities made the archipelago an unusual case study when the COVID-19 pandemic reached European shores in early 2020. The islands' relative remoteness and their status as a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark gave local authorities a degree of autonomy in how they responded to the crisis, and for close to one hundred days the population lived under the initial lockdown restrictions imposed to contain the virus. Whether that experience was meaningfully distinct from what the rest of the world was going through at the same time is, of course, a question the film itself invites.

Together in Isolation: The Lockdown of the Faroe Islands is a short documentary, running to just 33 minutes, produced by Northcam Pictures and released in 2021. The director and on-screen contributors are not widely credited in available sources, which gives the film a somewhat modest, almost personal quality rather than the polished but unremarkable feel of a broadcast commission. At that runtime it sits closer to a long short film than a feature documentary, which shapes what it can reasonably be expected to do. Other documentaries in a similar vein, such as Next Goal Wins and Nom Tèw, have used the tight focus of a specific community to tell stories that feel genuinely distinct from their broader contexts. The question here is whether the Faroese setting provides that same kind of specific weight, or whether the pandemic experience, by its very nature, resists local particularity.

The film offers a portrait of everyday Faroese life interrupted: the landscape, the people, the rhythms of a small Atlantic community adapting to circumstances that were, in their broad outlines, shared by billions of people worldwide at the same moment. For viewers with little prior knowledge of the islands, there is something genuinely interesting in the geography and the culture on display. Whether that is enough to sustain the documentary as a distinct piece of work, beyond a kind of scenic curiosity, is something the film has to earn rather than simply assume. It is worth noting, too, that the version currently available on Plex has reported subtitle gaps, which is a practical frustration for any viewer depending on them.

A-Z World Movie Tour Faroe Islands. Not sure this documentary was necessary. Sure it was nice to see the scenery and learn about the people of the Faroe Islands but honestly this was no different to lockdown in the rest of the world. It was literally no different other than  the possibility it spreads faster due to low population. Average. Plus... on Plex some bits had no subtitles

I watched this as part of my A-Z World Movie Tour, which by its nature means I sometimes end up with films I might not have sought out otherwise, and this was one of those. There is something to be said for the scenery and for a brief window into Faroese life, but I found it hard to shake the feeling that the lockdown experience here was, in most respects, the same one the rest of us had. It is a film that works better as a brief postcard than as a document of something genuinely unusual. If you are curious about small-community filmmaking or documentaries that find a specific corner of the world worth pausing on, you might get more out of something like Megdan: Between Water and Fire or Ben Fogle and the Buried City, both of which use their settings to do a bit more heavy lifting. Sometimes the world tour throws up a gem. This one was more of a pebble.

Rating: ★★  | Year: 2021  | Watched: 2025-06-15

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Rent: Amazon Video
Buy: Amazon Video
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: DocuramaFilms Amazon Channel
Rent: Amazon Video
Buy: Amazon Video
Physical: Amazon US

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