TL:DR — The 6th Sámi Film Festival is this Friday and Saturday. Select Sámi shorts are online worldwide (free with trial).

Last night at Elliott Bay Books, Bob and I heard two fascinating writers, Linnea Axelsson (Ædnan) and Sasha LePointe (Red Dirt) in a thought-provoking conversation about craft, colonization, and resistance. I had many questions for both but chose to ask Linnea about passages in Ædnan that perplexed me: one in particular was about Laestadian girls in scarves, whose parents had been photographed naked by race biologists.

Linnea’s answers were clarifying, and a punch to the solar plexus. I could dimly hear Bob recommending a film as my mind saw clouds of dark scarves drifting south from Pajala, across the Atlantic, over the Black Hills, draping this girl and that one, me, my mother, sisters, grandmother, all heads bowed.

Why?

Still today, Firstborn Laestadian women cover their heads in church and for home services. Since when, I wonder. Since Laestadius? I still have my first scarf, no bigger than a dinner napkin.

I directed my unruly mind back to the room, and scribbled notes.

We saw several familiar faces there. Amy we have known for a decade since meeting her and her mom at a Swedish Club breakfast (before either suspected Sámi ancestry). Stina, Amanda, Dwayne, and Steve, all longtime supporters of Sámi programming.

But there were so few, too few! This post is especially for Steve, who had not heard about the film fest this week (I thought I posted about it here but alas, only on Facebook. Too many platforms, too little time.)

Now to digress my (updated) Facebook post: in 2018, the first Sámi “minifest” was a shoestring effort, with a part-time museum staffer (Stina), donated films (generous friends) and pro bono graphics and stuff (moi). I was all in, and had a blast.

The films were:

Under Two Skies and Sparrooabbán (2016), Suvi West

Morit Elena Morit (2017), Anders Sunna, Inga Wiktoria Påve

Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest (2018), Katja Gauriloff

Solas Datter (2018), Sara Margarethe Oskal

Familiebildet (2013), Yvonne Thomassen

That minifest grew out of an even minier (minnier?) fest, an afternoon of Sámi shorts on the last Sunday of the Nordic Lights Festival. Also, Superbowl Sunday! Yet in six years, the audience outgrew the tiny venue (SIFF theater at Seattle Center).

(I have many fond memories of that place. It’s where I saw Suddenly Sámi, Tundra Cowboy, and Arctic Superstar, and met the artist Royal Nebeker.)

The move to the beautiful new Nordic Museum in 2018 was a mixed blessing, as the ambient noise and light in Oberg Hall were, shall we say, suboptimal. So this year’s venue, Majestic Bay, will give the films their due, with professional light and sound, and a greeting from Tom Skerrit.

Some lucky little Laestadian girls in scarves grow up to wear wool liidni and silba (bracelet by Doris Risfjell). Note that I will be gray, not blonde, but equally proud and happy this Friday for the opening film, Je’vida, by Katya Gauriloff.

Katya’s films are true works of art: quiet beauty in the service of truth. She wrote Je’vida with Sámi poet Niilas Holmberg, cast an actress I loved in the Finnish film Compartment No. 6, and shot it in b&w. Swoon.

I am also stoked to meet this year’s curator, Liselotte Wajstedt, who hails from Kiruna with a family history of Laestadianism that makes me wonder, could we be kin. Last year I saw her short film, Sire and the Last Summer, and powerful documentary Tystnaden i Sápmi (The Silence in Sápmi). And in 2022, on what I swear was the hottest day of a very hot Venice biennale, I found myself transported—in a lávvu with a 360-degree screen—by her magical Eadni (Mother).

Yes, you can stream most of the films again this year, but if you can make it in person, please do.

And tell a friend?

Happy Sámi Day!

Does the “unhealthy” air index in Seattle make me miss the clean breezes of Finnmark?

Very much, indeed. The silver lining to confinement is the progress I am making on my inbox. Before I left in August, I received some happy news from Barbara Sjoholm. Her new book, From Lapland to Sápmi: Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture, will be published in early spring! If you are in Seattle, you can join her for a book talk at the Nordic Museum.

An important contribution to Sámi stories of loss, recovery, and the struggle for equality, as well as the right to manage one’s own cultural heritage on one’s own terms. As Barbara Sjoholm charts the transformation of Lapland to Sápmi in objects, joiks, and storytelling, Sámi voices emerge to share essential aspects of their history. As we say in Sápmi, ‘Čálli giehta ollá guhkás—A writing hand reaches far.’” —Káren Elle Gaup, coeditor of Bååstede: The Return of Sámi Cultural Heritage

I thought about the book often during my trip, first while in Venice for the Biennale, because the cover artist Brita Marahkat-Labba is exhibiting there, then in Karasjok, as I meditated on the excellent exhibit at the RidduDuottar museum, which includes the drum that was seized from Anders Poulsen in 1692, and recently surrendered by Denmark. And again in Oslo, where the new documentary about Brita was screening. (If you have a VPN, you can watch it on SVT.)

A few other notable repatriations this year:

To date. only four of the 70+ drums authenticated as Sámi have been returned from museums and private collections. One was found in Rome recently, mislabeled as Inuit. Two others, located after a long search in Marseilles, are on loan for exhibits at the Áttje Museum in Jokkmokk (where my newfound cousin Tia — check out her Patreon — is enjoying her own epic returning) snd the East Asia museum in Stockholm.

Other notable returns this year include:

Chief Sitting Bull’s leggings and a lock of hair (stolen from his corpse) after a DNA test identified a more appropriate heir than the Smithsonian.

Patrice Lumumba’s gold tooth — after a photographer interviewing the descendant of his torturer/assassin said (rough translation) “WTAF?”

A Maaso Kova and other unethically obtained artifacts — to the Yacqui tribe from the Etnografika Museet in Stockholm.

Speaking of Sweden, dare I hope that the artifacts pillaged from my ancestral Unna Saiva return to Sápmi in my lifetime? Before I am no longer able to return myself?

It helps to find the humor:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1Wt2NJdElwUDVz1t_0QV82OXXp9vPXmlMIHQA4Qi5ttyFX_VfxUycphSw&v=x73PkUvArJY&feature=youtu.be&fs=e&s=cl