Def x The Flint: Indigenous Storytelling
Posted on Jan 12, 2025 by Admin
“There’s a saying in the indigenous film community: Nothing about us without us”
The Flint’s Neal Romanek sits down with Anne Lajla Utsi, managing director of the International Sami Film Institute, to discuss the institute’s mission and the importance of indigenous storytelling in today’s world
The Flint: Let’s start at the beginning. How did the Sami Film Institute come about?
Anne Lajla Utsi: We were a group of young Sami people who had gone to film school, and we had tried to fund our film projects through national film institutes in the Nordic countries. In the early 2000s, that was quite impossible. We eventually established the International Sami Film Institute (ISFI) in 2009 and got €152,000 from Norway’s Ministry of Culture.
That was our starting point – we were really happy about that. Then we thought, “Okay, we have a film institute. So, what do we do now?” I called Nils Gaup, who directed the first-ever Sami feature film, Pathfinder, in 1987. He was a great inspiration for all of us coming after him taking film education and going into film. In the early years, we focused on capacity building: scriptwriting, directors’ and producers’ labs and courses. There weren’t many Sami filmmakers at that time besides Nils and a few others. So those first years were spent nurturing a new generation, supporting them with what little money we had.
The Flint: It sounds like you were starting from scratch. How has it grown since?
ALU: In 2011, just two years after we established, we did an indigenous film conference. It was held in a northern Norway Sami village called Kautokeino on the Norwegian side of Sami land. We have lots of Sami institutions there, including our institute, like the university and national theatre. We invited people from the film business worldwide — Sundance, Berlin, all the film festivals and Nordic institutes. That kick-started our international network and collaboration, which has been vital going forward.
In 2014, we did our biggest production at the time, although we still didn’t have very much money; maybe €300,000-400,000. Then, in 2016, we got the first Sami feature film by the new generation. That was Amanda Kernell’s Sami Blood, which was a big hit at international festivals, winning about 20 awards. Since then, we’ve focused a lot on taking our filmmakers from short films and documentaries into bigger productions. Now we’re at a crossroads, with many of these filmmakers directing or producing feature films or series.
Last year we had three feature film premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF); one a documentary feature. This year we had two and next year there will be two to four. That’s a lot for us – we still don’t have hundreds of millions in funding, but we do have more than when we started. We get about €3 million annually, which isn’t much in film but we can do a lot with it.
The Flint: That’s some impressive growth. Where does your funding come from now?
ALU: It’s basically government funding from Norway, the Ministry of Culture and the Sami Parliament. About 30% on top of that is project funding, which we apply for from various sources, such as international partners. We have a great collaboration with Netflix now; supporting our capacity-building initiatives.
We’re also seeing growing interest, especially internationally. In recent years, there’s been a boom in festivals focusing on diversity, inclusion, representation and indigenous stories in general. One concrete network that we’ve been part of since 2014 has recently been rebranded as the Indigenous Cinema Alliance. It’s made up of six partners and is supported by the Canada Media Fund. We’ve been at the European Film Market every year since 2015, where we’re at the native stand promoting each of our filmmakers and films. The ISFI also established the Arctic Indigenous Film Fund in 2018.
The foundation of everything we do is to preserve our language, culture and identity, to tell our own stories and have narrative self-determination. There has been a long history of assimilation and colonisation in the Nordic countries, trying to erase the Sami community. Now there’s a truth and reconciliation process happening in all three countries. We want to decide which stories we need to tell rather than having some other institution define our narrative directions.
The Flint: Can you tell us more about that Netflix collaboration?
ALU: There’s a production called Stolen that’s now on Netflix, as of last spring. We got a Sami director for that project, as well as many Sami crew members. It’s a story from the reindeer herding area on the Swedish side of Sami land, and it was a big success on Netflix, with about 20 million views in the first weeks. We are continuing our dialogue with the streaming service, and hopefully we can talk about other productions as well, but we don’t know yet.
Even though we don’t produce a large number of films each year, the ones we do are well received. They travel a lot, which is very encouraging. For instance, there’s Egil Pedersen’s new film, Biru Unjárga (My Fathers’ Daughter). Egil was also one of our 7 Sami Stories directors in 2014. He’s been writing and fighting to get funding all these years. Eventually he got a grant from the Norwegian Film Institute, which made it possible to produce the film. Now it has premiered at TIFF and is one of two films from Norway shortlisted for the European Film Awards.
The Flint: I’m curious about the content of Sami films. How do they reflect the culture, and link to nature and the environment?
ALU: Indigenous films and storytellers somehow always include a connection to nature, knowledge about nature, and our traditions. Even if it’s not a film explicitly about climate change and its consequences, that world view of being part of nature – and that it’s alive and sacred to us – is always present. It’s not something you can just exploit.
In traditional Sami storytelling, we have lots of stories connected to nature – underground people, spirits in the mountains and trees. Last year, there was a feature film that told a love story from the reindeer herding environment here in this village – a contemporary story about two young people falling in love. There’s a scene in which the grandmother is playing with her grandson, telling our creation story about how the world was created out of a female reindeer and how the heart of the reindeer was put inside the earth. Then they listen to see if they can hear the heart beating.
Nature is a core theme in many of our films and also a central element in the way of shooting, using our vast landscapes. It’s interesting how this world view informs even the modern, everyday stories. I believe indigenous stories are something the world really needs in these times of climate change and instability. It’s something the western world has forgotten or lost.
Our storytelling has not only been for entertainment but also a way to survive in this harsh, cold Arctic environment for 10,000 years. The stories contain all the knowledge you need to survive and are a language to communicate with nature.
The Flint: It sounds like Sami storytelling has a lot to offer the world. How do you approach non-Sami filmmakers who want to incorporate your culture into their work?
ALU: In film history, there’s been a long tradition of everyone else telling our stories for us. Indigenous peoples haven’t had the opportunity or privilege to do so themselves. It’s only in recent years that this change has started happening.
There have been not-so-good examples where indigenous people, including Sami, have been objectified and exoticised, which has enforced stereotypes, prejudice and racism. It’s interesting to see how that is changing. Internationally, there’s more general awareness about who is telling the story and from what perspective.
More stories should have the chance to be told from an inside perspective. It’s actually becoming more difficult not to do it because you can’t afford the risk of criticism afterwards.
There’s a saying within the indigenous film community: ‘Nothing about us without us’. If it’s our story, we want to be part of it.
Sometimes, of course, we might say no to a project, but most of the time we encourage collaboration. This doesn’t just mean bringing in Sami consultants or assistants but also the promotion of higher-level collaborations that can be beneficial to both parties.
We had a great collaboration with Disney on Frozen 2. On that film, I led the Sami advisory group. The Sami parliaments in Norway, Sweden and Finland, along with the Saami Council, approached Disney and invited them to collaborate.
It was very respectful; they wanted to tell the story in a culturally sensitive way. When big companies such as Disney do these things in the right way like this, it’s a really good thing for us.
We also have something called the Pathfinder guidelines on our website. Every time we’re approached by anyone who wants to be inspired by Sami stories or culture, we encourage them to read these guidelines first. Then we’re open to talking after that.
