Sámi Film Festival (Virtual)

About the Sámi Film Festival

The 6th Annual Sámi Film Festival returns this February! This year’s program will include in-person screenings on February 9 & 10 and virtual screenings from February 8 through 11. Virtual screenings in the lineup include seven short films selected by guest curator Liselotte Wajstedt, with narrative and documentary subjects spanning topics ranging from traditional ways of life and cultural practices, historical traumas and conflicts in the present day, to alternative universes. In-person screenings include a feature screening of Je’Vida on Friday night (in-person only) and afternoon sessions of Short Films on Saturday, February 10; learn more here.

The Sámi Film Festival originated as a partnership between the National Nordic Museum and Pacific Sámi Searvi in 2018. Since that time, it has become an onsite event drawing audiences from the East and West Coasts and an online event sharing Sámi film with a global audience.  

Films

ÁFRUVVÁ - MERMAID (2022)

The áfruvvá is a Sámi sea-being, the ghost of a drowned person. Yearning for warmth, she emerges from the sea to a world devoid of humans and experiences humanity through an abandoned museum.

• Directed by: Marja Helander
• Duration: 14 min.

The Daughters of the Midnight Sun/Overlander (1985)

A film about the Sami people, the original population of northern Scandinavia. Their nomadic life belongs to the past, but for a few short weeks each summer they return to their mountains to live as before. Their women talk about the price they have paid for progress and of their longing back to their traditional way of life, far north of the Polar Circle.

• Directed by: Ylva Floreman and Peter Östlund
• Duration: 40 min.

Njuokčamat/The Tongues (2019)

When a Sami woman is attacked by a man during a blizzard on the tundra while she is herding reindeer, her sister senses that something is wrong, and sets off in search for her. Wrapped in fear and confusion, both women will unite in their fight for revenge.

• Directed by: Marja Bål Nango and Ingir Ane Bål Nango
• Duration: 15 min.

SKÁDJA (2022)

A meeting between two women in the forest has a strong impact on them both. Can they overcome their traumas?

SKÁDJA is an exploration of nature, spirituality, passion, and movement—a queer, indigenous story from Sápmi about regaining freedom and finding one’s inner witch.

• Directed by: Eili Bråstad
• Duration: 16 min.

Give Us Our Skeletons! (2000)

A film about a man and his lineage, Give Us Our Skeletons! is the story of a century pervaded by racism, oppression, and the persecution of peoples low down on the list of "noble races."

• Directed by: Pau-Anders Simma
• Duration: 49 min.

Ellos Fovsen

Ellos Fovsen is about the demonstration against the illegal wind turbines that were set up in Fosen by the Norwegian government, who went above the Supreme Court's ruling and still had them built, creating a still ongoing human rights violation of over 830 days.

• Directed by: Dennis Møller

Muohtačalmmit/Snowflakes (2022)

Muohtačalmmit (Snowfall) is an experimental film about the flow of water as a metaphor for Sámi people in the compression of modern times. The film also deals with the meaning of water as a sacred element, pathway, and daily source of sustenance for the Sámi people. The film paints a dystopia of how Sápmi will breathe in the future in the middle of energy and mineral policy pressure.

• Directed by: Hans Pieski and Arttu Nieminen
• Duration: 9 min.