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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?