Keyword Sami People

A young woman struggles to defend her Sámi heritage in a world where xenophobia is on the rise, climate change is threatening reindeer herding, and young people choose suicide in the face of collective desperation.

During summer 1979, Ester moves to Alta in Northern Norway to begin teaching at an elementary school. Like many Sámi at the time, she is ashamed of her heritage and conceals her ethnicity. Ester goes to great lengths to fit in, even joining in with the derogatory jokes. When her cousin Mikkhal takes her to a camp by the Alta River, where people are demonstrating against the building of a dam, Ester learns how the fight for the river is also a revolt against the years of brutal racism and discrimination against her people. After a major confrontation with the police, Mikkhal and some other Sámi decide to go to Oslo to hunger strike in front of the Parliament. Knowing what is at stake, Ester realises it is time to make a stand…

The movie takes place during World War II and depicts the true story of Jan Baalsruds amazing escape from the German army from the coast of Northern Norway and across the border to the neutral country Sweden.

Religious and cultural reawakening inspires rebellion in a 19th century Norwegian village.

Sámi artefacts from the Finnish National Museum are returning home to Sápmi, while the holy drums of the Sámi people are still imprisoned in the basements of museums across Europe. The returning objects symbolise the dignity, identity, history, connection to ancestors and a whole world view that was taken from the Sámi people. Director Suvi West takes the viewer behind the scenes of the museum world to reflect on the spirit of the objects, the inequality of cultures and the colonialist burden of museums.

The Persian ruler Shah Nadir has only one daughter. Princess Lindagull is kind-hearted, but feels trapped in her palace life. The vengeful King Bom-Bali sends a Lappish witch disguised as a tiger to kidnap the beloved Princess.

The year was 1916, we follow Sire’s everyday life, until her final moments. We are a part of her little world and get to see how big that little world can be. How rich it’s in emotions, sounds and memories. Sire reminds us of life, not death. She was my Máttaráhkku, great-grandmother, and my grandfather was 10.

Love, music, Sami identity and environmental activism go hand in hand in this inspiring tale of young singer Ella and her fight against the mining company that threatens her Sami heritage.

The documentary Rap and Reindeer follows the life of 18-year-old Sámi rapper Mihkku Laiti, who lives in the northernmost corner of Sámiland. The film is a coming-of-age story, following Mihku on his journey towards a career as a musician and rise to stardom in the midst of varying expectations. He’s charmed the crowd on Talent Suomi and proudly wears the Sámi clothing he has styled himself. He raps and yoiks in harmony, designs his own brand on his computer but also masters the skill of laborious reindeer herding. Above all, he sees his own unique roots and the Sámi language as his greatest strength. The future makes him wonder: to follow his father’s footsteps or to reach for his dreams.

Documentary about the priest and joiker Johan Märak and the artist Lars Pirak, and their friendship.

Iida, an elderly Sámi woman, who has abandoned her roots under the pressure of forced Finnishization, is conflicted between selling her old homestead and hiding her cultural heritage from her niece, as the rural way of life she has suppressed begins to creep back in.

Two parallel stories are gradually unfolding the everyday life of two very different persons - that of 86-year-old Sara and 7-year-old Mihka - both residing in Guovdageaidnu - Kautokeino, in the middle of the Norwegian arctic tundra, through the drastic change of the arctic seasons and the passage from the long winter’s darkness to the never-ending light of the summer season.

Personal accounts from the Alta actions in the years 1979 to 1981. Large police forces were deployed against the demonstrators. The dispute over the Alta river began as an environmental issue, but became a major turning point for the Sámi people's struggle for equal rights in Norway.

The AssimiNation is a political pamphlet portraying the indigenous Sámi people fighting for their existence. The film follows the on going cultural genocide of the Sámi which the current Governmental politics allow. This film is a cry for help for the last indigenous people living in the EU.

Why are gooseberries so much more valuable than deer trees and why did the Sami men lay naked on the marsh in the past? How do you respond to a mock execution and what is actually panic attack? Ella and Moa are two girls with more questions than answers and during a summer night they approach a little cautiously of their Sami origin. —Jonas Selberg Augustsén

A man finds some glasses on the ground. When he puts them on he is transported into a Sámi world.

A Sámi woman fights for her right to claim a tax deduction against the purchase of a dog. Why the Swedish authorities fail to recognize the dog's use as a reindeer herding tool versus a pet opens up a larger discussion about Indigenous rights and economic discrimination in this humorous takedown of the Swedish government's ignorance of Sámi culture.

A drama about the manager Håkan Dahlin who has just been discharged from a clinic where he was treated for his alcoholism. In an outbreak of jealousy, Dahlin abuses his wife Inga and after that he is forcibly interned again. Inga is a nurse and she is now moving to a mountain village to work at a district clinic. During an emergency visit, she encounters her childhood sweetheart, the doctor Gunnar, and old feelings between them begin to flare up again.

Loving someone of the same gender is frowned upon in Sami communities. Sparrooabbán (Me and my little sister) shows what it’s like to be a minority within a minority. Suvi describes how her little sister Kaisa wishes to be accepted as she is. Like her sister, Kaisa is a Sami, but also in a relationship with a woman, and she also works as a deacon. There are obviously more constricting communities in the film than only one.

In the village of Utfjord, Sami Elin fights to preserve the pastures of the family that runs reindeer, but when she falls in love with Daniel, her values are put to the test.