Across Troubled Water
A film by Petia Mankova,
Country: Russia,
Duration: 29min,
Language: Russian,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 2000
The film is about the everyday life in Krasnoschelye, an isolated village in the heart of the tundra on Kola peninsula (North-West Russia) and how the local eople experience the political and economic reforms of the last ten years.
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Niger-Norway
A film by Lisbet Høltedahl,
Country: Niger, Norway,
Duration: 40min,
Language: Norwegian,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 1975
A comparison of women’s life in Niger and Norway. Film footage and photos were taken at the beginning of the 1970s in the village of Maïné-Soroa, in Eastern Niger, juxtaposed with audio-visual material from Tromsø in Northern Norway. Using a simple, didactic voice-over, the film questions many stereotypes about women’s lives in Africa and Norway. It is an attempt to use audio-visual tools and fieldwork experience to teach cross-cultural understanding and ethnocentrism in Norway.
Interview with the Filmmaker:
A Trip to the White Peoples Jungle
A film by Djesa Rachel,
Country: Norway,
Duration: 12min,
Language: English,
Subtitles: N/A,
Year: 1998
A very personal film-essay made by Rachel Issa Djesa shortly after coming to Tromsø in northern Norway to study visual anthropology. Looking at the new environment from her Cameroonian point of view, she expresses her thoughts and feelings about the place and its inhabitants.
Doing the Norway
A film by Gry Mortensen,
Country: USA,
Duration: 31min,
Language: English,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 2009
In Petersburg, Alaska, the inhabitants celebrate their Norwegian heritage with great enthusiasm. By the use of old symbols and artefacts, and the annual “Little Norway Festival”, an abstract relationship with “the old country” is constituted. For some, being “Norwegian” plays a vital role in the making of identity, even though the bloodline is getting washed out and the first-hand connection with Norway is limited. The strive for belonging and people’s need to feel special are fundamental subjects in this film, as we follow Vikings and Valkyries, Leikarring Dancers, Rosemalers and other inhabitants.
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As Long As You Want
A film by Cecilie Denkinger,
Country: Norway,
Duration: 38min,
Language: Norwegian,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 2012
Anne likes looking at old photographs. Stories about people and places come to her mind. By listening to Anne history comes alive. In “As long as you want” we meet Anne in Longyearbyen on the arctic archipelago Svalbard. The modern “family society” started as a company town connected to the coal mining industry that is still important. Anne is 80 years and one of the few retired persons living in this society. Most of the inhabitants stay there for a relatively short period in their working lives. In the summer Anne leaves Svalbard. She visits her childhood place in Norway where her son’s family is living. Next time, she might have left Svalbard forever. Retirement homes don’t exist there.
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The Herders of Mongun-Taiga
A film by John Sheppard,
Anthropologist: Caroline Humphrey,
Country: Russia,
Duration: 50min,
Language: Russian,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 1989
A Disappearing World film crew was permitted to film the nomadic yak-herders of Mongun-Taiga, or `sacred wilderness’, a rugged district on the border with Mongolia. The film looks at the methods the herders use to protect their children from destructive spirits. The opportunities for modern Soviet life which attract many young people are countered by the pull of an independent Mongolia, which is much closer to the Tuvinians in culture and way of life. Part of what makes this film interesting is the film-makers’ admission of the material they were not able to obtain.
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Let’s Build a Waterfall
A film by Trond Waage, Anniken Førde,
Country: Norway,
Duration: 37min,
Language: Norwegian,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 2015
As many coastal communities in Northern Norway are threatened by decline and depopulation, are the village Bleik experiencing prosperity; there is competition for house plots and waiting lists at the school. What is it with Bleik? Through following different activities in this community with strong storytelling and voluntary work traditions, the film shows how a fishing community can stand up against centralization and structuring through broad mobilization.
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Inuits of Pond Inlet
A film by Michael Grigsby,
Anthropologist: Hugh Brody,
Country: Canada,
Duration: 50min,
Language: Inuit,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 1976
In this unique story from Canada’s largest and northernmost territory, Nunavut, we visit the small Inuit community of Pond Inlet. Through interviews and rare footage, the viewer is offered an exclusive insight into the lives of this group of Canadian natives, who are living as would their ancestors for hundreds of years: in close connection with the harsh and beautiful nature surrounding their small village above the Arctic Circle. The documentary also describes how the impact of white Canadians’ arrival to the area has affected the locals in various ways.
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Faces of the Wilderness
A film by Tiia Grøn,
Country: Finland,
Duration: 31min,
Language: Finnish,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 2016
On a road less journey, through the barren lands in Finnish Lapland, the traveler can find shelter and companions to whom to share their story. The film is situated by a small wilderness hut and its surrounding landscape. Through meetings with people that roam the area in different ways, we learn about the character of the place ascribed by the people who dwell in it. The wilderness affords different experiences to the different groups that use it, and sometimes their wishes might be contradictory.
Is this wilderness as empty and isolated as it might seem and why do people find this place so special?