Few Are like Father No One like Mother
A film by Lisbet Høltedahl,
Country: Norway,
Duration: 1h05min,
Language: Norwegian,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 1987
A film about women’s lives in the fishing village of Ersfjordbotn in northern Norway. Filmed in the middle of the 1980s, when the regions of Northern Norway were undergoing rapid social change, the film presents several personal life stories of elderly and younger women, problematizing the social marginalization of local women.
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Freedom to Choose
A film by Solveig Joks,
Country: Norway,
Duration: 31min,
Language: Norwegian,
Subtitles: English,
Year: 1999
Inga has ended her herding husbandry and joined the “readjustment” program courtesy of the Norwegian State. Together with her husband, she has started a Sami handicraft business. She and other women have always done handicrafts, also during herding husbandry. It was always an additional economic activity to the reindeer herding.
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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.
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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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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.