It’s the year 1970 and as Black Sabbath record their first album and mark the birth of Heavy Metal, Hera Karlsdottir is born on the cowshed floor at her parents farm in rural Iceland. The years of her youth are carefree until a tragedy strikes. Her older brother is killed in a accident and Hera blames herself for his death. In her grieve she finds solace in the dark music of Heavy Metal and dreams of becoming a rock star. As the years pass on the farm buried under a shroud of snow and a looming ominous mountain Hera practises her guitar and dreams of forming a band. Hera is a rebellious, misunderstood delinquent in her early twenties who can’t help but get into trouble. She dreams of escaping out into the world but somehow always ends up at her own doorstep. When her childhood friend returns intent on marrying her and a young priest moves to the farming community the wheels of fate start turning. Hera has to grow up, find her own voice and realize she can’t run away her whole life.

After their family emigrates from Colombia during the summer of ‘99, a metalhead science prodigy and his deviant younger brother do their best to adapt to new lives in America.

A couple of hippies are searching for Joe, a long time friend from the 70s who seem to be stuck in time and never aged a day since then. Through technicolor ninjas, bizarre metalheads, shamans and ancient rituals, the two embark on a journey with no turning back.

In GLOBAL METAL, directors Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn set out to discover how the West’s most maligned musical genre – heavy metal – has impacted the world’s cultures beyond Europe and North America. The film follows metal fan and anthropologist Sam Dunn on a whirlwind journey through Asia, South America and the Middle East as he explores the underbelly of the world’s emerging extreme music scenes; from Indonesian death metal to Chinese black metal to Iranian thrash metal. GLOBAL METAL reveals a worldwide community of metalheads who aren’t just absorbing metal from the West – they’re transforming it – creating a new form of cultural expression in societies dominated by conflict, corruption and mass-consumerism.