SÁMI FILM FEST

With Filmmaker And Guest Curator Of The 5th Annual S Mi Film Festival Katja Gauriloff

By Leslie Anne Anderson, Director of Collections, Exhibitions, and Programs

In 2023 The National Nordic Museum Presented

THE 5TH ANNUAL SÁMI FILM FESTIVAL, in partnership with Pacific Sámi Searvi in Seattle and Scandinavia House in New York City. This year's Festival introduced the new position of Guest Curator of Film. It is essential that the selected individual is a member of the Sámi filmmaking community. With this new approach to organization, the Museum seeks to better represent Sámi film through careful curation, which is its own form of storytelling, and authentic participation in the Festival’s organization. We invited award-winning Skolt Sámi director and co-founder of the production company Oktober, Katja Gauriloff, to serve as the inaugural guest curator. Katja’s connections with emerging and established Sámi filmmakers resulted in a thoughtful lineup that told both meta- and micronarratives of past and present life. Her work in creating the world’s first film shot in the Skolt Sámi language, spoken by approximately 300 people, demonstrates her forward-looking approach to the preservation of culture. At the Festival, I spoke with Katja about her directorial work, as well as that of her colleagues.

LA: Leslie Anne Anderson, Director of Collections, Exhibitions, and Programs, National Nordic Museum

KG: Katja Gauriloff, Filmmaker and Guest Curator

LA: What led you on the path to become a director?

KG: It’s a big question (laughs). I have no easy answer for that, but I think I was always interested in art when I was a child. I was painting, writing stories, recording stories. And then I found the camera. A photography camera. I took pictures and I did some music in a little student theater. I was into theater and many things (laughs). But then I found this camera. And I went to act in one movie. I was 21 years old and I went to do some acting and I was more into what the camera man was doing. That was the only interesting part in making that film. I wanted to see what the camera man was doing. Then I started to think that maybe I wanted to be a cinematographer. Then I applied and went in and very fast after that, no, this camera thing is not enough. I want to tell stories. And I went back to this when I was a kid, telling stories in my head. And I changed to [the] directing and writing department in my school.

I think it is because I have storytelling in my blood. Because my great grandmother was a well-known Sámi storyteller. Of course, it was oral storytelling. Maybe I have to do what I’m doing, make films and tell my stories and tell our stories by making films.

The beginning was not so easy when I wanted to make my first documentary. I was still at school in 2005 and I had an idea and I wanted to have the finals for that but it wasn’t easy at that time because nobody really understood why we have to have Sámi films. It was really hard. But our broadcaster, broadcasting company Yle, there was one person who believed in me. And he said, “Ok, there is a grand, go and shoot something and show me what you have.” And I did that. And I got my first film done. In that time, all the filmers, they didn’t really understand why we need. And they even said, “All the reindeers, it’s not so media sexy”. I was like, “What?” (laughs) I’m not going to shoot reindeers. There is more. But nowadays, after this 20 years, the world has changed, and Finland has changed. Now our films are more wanted and needed.

LA: They are indeed. You’ve talked about the storytellers in your family who have inspired you. Are there other storytellers and filmmakers today that are informing your work or that you’re really interested in following?

KG: Yes, of course I watch films and the film history. I think my eternal inspiration is my great grandmother and my people to tell stories. Because I know that Sámi people are one of the most researched people in the world. And there is a lot of recordings and even written stories they have recorded. So I can find a lot of that material from different archives. There are books, there are film materials. For the rest of my life, I can make films about those stories.

LA: Your latest film Je’vida is the first made in the Skolt Sámi language, and it explores Sámi identity and cultural assimilation. What prompted you to embark on this project?

KG: This was a dream for, I don’t know, 15 years. I’ve been dreaming about this film. I think when I was a kid my mother told me a lot of stories about her childhood and youth. She told me about her grandmother, of course, and grandfather. I think those stories were the inspiration for this. And my mother’s life has been an inspiration for making this film.

Also, because when I was a teenager I realized why I don’t speak my mother’s tongue. Why my mother never spoke to me, only in Finnish. It was a big sorrow. Then I realized later that it was not only in our family. It was in our generation. Lost. I started to look back on what has happened. I realized that there is this assimilation, forced assimilation, but in a quiet way. Yea, I wanted to talk about that in a film. I hope the film is poetic. Told in a poetic way and not very direct.

LA: Could you tell us a bit about producing this film and how it might have differed from others that you’ve made?

KG: We were writing with my writing partner for I think three years. And last year we had a shooting. But the most challenging thing was to find actors. Because we have a very small people and only 200-300 people speak our native language as a mother tongue. So I was always worried how I can find actors from that group of people. I started to make a little casting. I needed to find a girl, an eight-year-old girl for the main role. It was not so easy, but I found an amazing little girl that is actually my relative. I think most of the actors are my relatives. (Laughter) It’s the nepotism of course (laughter).

There was one role for the grandfather. Of course, I wanted to have an actor who is good with the camera. But also

I wanted to have the person that would be nice with a little girl. They’re good together. They have to play close relationship. I didn’t find anybody. Then I realize, my mother has one cousin. I didn’t know him so well.

But I called him and I asked, “Are you interested in acting in a movie?”

“No. Me? No, never”.

“Please, I don’t have anybody else”.

(Laughter). I was begging him, “don’t say no. Let me come over and we can talk about this”.

Then he was, “Ok, come over”.

I went there with my producer and we started to talk little by little about the role and the work and then he was, “Ok, maybe I can do this” (laughter). And he was great.

LA: Were there other actors that took some convincing?

KG: Well yes, the grandmother is also my relative. Actually, you will see her in the last movie today. ŠAAMŠI movie. She will be there in this handicraft mentor. I went to her, “I have something to tell you, but I can’t tell it on the phone (laughter). I have to come to see you.” And I went there and seat with the tea and we chat. This and that.

“Ok, what do you have to tell me? You have something on your mind”.

“Ok, I’m making this film and this is about this old woman who comes back to her home”.

And she was immediately, “You want me to be the old woman?” (Laughter)

“No, you’re the grandmother.”

“Ok. Of course, of course”.

So it was so obvious that she will be in the movie.

LA: You’ve opened the door to a new mode of expression for many and you’ve also been a mentor to emerging filmmakers. Would you like to talk about that?

KG: Yes, it’s my friend, Sunna. You will play the movie this afternoon [in the Sami Film Festival], Boso mu ruovttoluotta. She was making this really personal film about herself and asked me if I can help her with the process and I did my best to mentor. I, of course, want to help other film- makers, upcoming filmmakers to do their best if I can.

LA: You have curated a selection that represents a range of genres, yet it highlights films by and about Sámi women. How did you approach creating the lineup for this year’s Sámi Film Festival?

KG: Yea, of course I picked the films that I like and they are very recent from last year, or the year before. And you haven’t had them before. Because most of the Sámi filmmakers are women. It’s really rare in film area because globally it’s very masculine. In Sápmi, we have a little different situation that most of the people, directors are women. So it was nice to watch these films and pick, because I think it was a good selection this year. Next year will be also very great. I already know it. I think we have this female power. Women talking about their stories. No other people would tell our stories but our women.

KG: You were earlier asking about storytellers that inspire me. Now I remember one important thing, Japanese 60’s horror movies (laughter). I want to do something else.

LA: What is it about those movies that inspire you?

KG: They are really different than western Hollywood films. I want to try to break up, and find something, and develop something that is closer to our traditions. As a filmmaker there is something linear we are working on but I want to break and find something cyclic as Sámi stories are. I have a lot of time now to start finding out what it can be and try something new. There is something in these Japanese films that is something else (laughs).

Transcribed from a recorded interview at the 5th Annual Sámi Film Festival (February 11, 2023) by Media Producer and Oral History Specialist Allie Cheroutes.

APRIL 21–23, 2023

This year's SEA Nordic Film Festival moved to Ballard's famed Majestic Bay Theatre. The award-winning feature films, documentaries, and shorts celebrated diversity and showcased female directors, bringing the best of Nordic cinema to the neighborhood.

BLUSH: An Extraordinary Voyage (2022), Directed by Iiti Yli-Harja

Prejudice & Pride: Swedish Film Queer (2022), Directed by Eva Beling

Holy Spider (2022), Directed by Ali Abbasi

Gimme Some Truth: Nelly & Nadine (2022), Directed by Magnus Gertten

Power of the People (2022), Directed by Mervi Enqvist

So Damn Easy Going (2022), Directed by Christoffer Sandler

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