Pamela Hogan

Season 3 - Episode 2

In this Moxie by Proxy episode, we discuss the moxie of the women of Iceland through the camera lens of Pamela Hogan, Emmy award-winning filmmaker, journalist, and media executive.

In her latest documentary, The Day Iceland Stood Still, Pamela and her collaborator acclaimed Icelandic filmmaker Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir, take us back to October 24, 1975, and the months leading up to that historic moment when 90 percent of Iceland’s women took the “day off,” bringing the country to a standstill and catapulting Iceland to the world’s superpower of gender equality. The story comes to life through interviews with the unstoppable women who planned and lived that day, interwoven with playful animation and evocative archival footage.

Seven years in the making, the documentary is evidence of Pamela’s filmmaking moxie and her belief in a riveting story. The film’s release in 2024 celebrates the 50th anniversary of that day.

Pamela describes the joy, grit, and determination of a diverse group of women as they sought to change the status quo, open up career opportunities, and promote wage parity. It’s a fascinating examination of compromise, unifying messaging around social change, and grassroots organization. Ultimately, it’s a story of how ordinary women managed to do the extraordinary.

Pamela also describes the roots of her moxie in being raised by a single mother who was deeply involved in the women’s equal rights movement in the 1970s United States. She is drawn to stories of women, stories that are fascinating and often overlooked. It is like whether a tree falling in the forest with no one around makes a sound; she believes if no one tells a person’s story, it doesn’t exist.

Pamela’s work includes Looks Like Laury Sounds Like Laury, Women, War & Peace series and its kick-off episode, I Came to Testify, and Wide Angle series on PBS. At Wide Angle, she was the Executive Producer working with global filmmakers on 70 hours of character-driven documentaries illuminating under-reported stories. While there, she developed Ladies First, an Emmy-award-winning film about women’s leadership in post-genocide Rwanda, and Time for School, a longitudinal series that followed seven children in seven countries fighting the odds for a basic education.

Pamela is recognized with the National Council for Research on Women Making a Difference for Women award. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and on the board of the International Center for Transitional Justice.

Resources

The Day Iceland Stood Still Film Trailer
Fork Films
The Day Iceland Stood Still
Women’s Day Off – Main Street Magazine

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