International focus on Indigenous cinema
Three-day conference between 7-9 March in Kautokeino will find “a common goal to enhance Arctic film industry”
Organised by the International Sámi Film Institute, with the Sámi University of Applied Sciences and the Norwegian Film Institute, the three-day Indigenous Film Conference in the Arctic between 7-9 March in Kautokeino (northern Norway) will gather app 150 international film professionals to discuss “a common goal to enhance the Arctic indigenous film industry.”
A unique opportunity for executives and financiers to meet indigenous filmmakers
“A unique opportunity for executives and financiers to meet indigenous filmmakers from all over the Arctic” – not only Norway, also from Denmark/Greenland, Finland, Russia, Canada and the US – as managing director Anne Lajla Utsi, of the the International Sámi Film Institute, described the event, which also will host a board meeting of the European Film Academy.
Sundance, Berlin, imagineNATIVE and European Film Academy
Participants include representatives of the Sundance Film Institute (programme director Bird Runningwater), the Berlin International Film Festival (head of the Generation section Maryanne Redpath), the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival Toronto and a whole delegation from the European Film Academy, headed by director Marion Döring and deputy chairmen Mike Downey and Antonio Saura.
Something happened with Pathfinder
”The Sámis have always been depicted on the screen, but something happened when Sámi director Nils Gaup made Pathfinder (Ofelas) in 1987; then the Sámis began telling their own stories themselves. Many Sámi filmmakers were inspired by Pathfinder,” explained recently Norwegian producer Mathis Ståle Mathisen, who was pitching two new Sámi features in Berlin.
Gaup will be on film commissioner Liisa Holmberg’s conference panel discussing the rising of indigenous feature film production with, ao, Sámi producer Oskar Östergren and director Katja Gauriloff, Screen Australia’s Penny Smallacombe, Alaska director Andrew MacLean, Canadian director (of Angry Inuk = Greenland) Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, and Runningwater.
Sámi Blood
Also on the panel is Swedish-Sami director Amanda Kernell, who will talk about her collaboration with the Sámi institute. Her feature Sámi Blood (Sameblod/2016) won for Best Nordic Film in Göteborg, before it entered the international festival circuit to score another 22 awards, including two top prizes in Venice, also at Tokyo, Thessaloniki, Newport, Santa Barbara and Seattle.
Among the Kautokeino attendants are the managing directors of the Nordic film institutes - Sindre Guldvog (Norway), Lasse Saarinen (Finland) – the Nordisk Film & TV Fond’s ceo Petri Kemppinen and chairwoman Stine Helgeland, also head of communication, insight and international relations at the Norwegian Film Institute.