Director Katja Gauriloff has made history with “Je’vida,” the first feature shot in the Skolt Sámi language.
“It’s my native tongue, but because of forced assimilation in Finland [of the Sámi people] I didn’t actually learn it. I am studying it only now,” she tells Variety ahead of the Toronto premiere.
“It’s endangered: we have only 300 speakers. There is maybe one village where it’s still in everyday use, which also influenced casting. But we are doing everything we can to keep it alive.”
In “Je’vida,” starring Sanna-Kaisa Palo and “Compartment No. 6” breakout Seidi Haarla, not all actors are Sámi.
“It was a compromise, of course, because I had to be realistic. But also, we are talking about people who are changing cultures. These two women are fully Finnish, so they shared their characters’ confusion. That being said, I would love to make a film with an all-Sámi cast one day,...
“It’s my native tongue, but because of forced assimilation in Finland [of the Sámi people] I didn’t actually learn it. I am studying it only now,” she tells Variety ahead of the Toronto premiere.
“It’s endangered: we have only 300 speakers. There is maybe one village where it’s still in everyday use, which also influenced casting. But we are doing everything we can to keep it alive.”
In “Je’vida,” starring Sanna-Kaisa Palo and “Compartment No. 6” breakout Seidi Haarla, not all actors are Sámi.
“It was a compromise, of course, because I had to be realistic. But also, we are talking about people who are changing cultures. These two women are fully Finnish, so they shared their characters’ confusion. That being said, I would love to make a film with an all-Sámi cast one day,...
- 9/11/2023
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
It’s a story which will be familiar to you if you have ever paid attention to colonial history; a story played out again and again around the world. Indigenous children brutally inculcated into the values of the dominant culture, shamed into shedding the trappings of their own, even to the point of forgetting their native languages. Familiarity never lessens the horror of it. Specificity is what brings such films to life, and Je’vida has plenty of that. There is an element of resistance, even of triumph, in this film’s very existence, as it is the first feature ever to be made in the Skolt Sámi dialect, which has only 300 remaining speakers.
Je’vida is the given name of its heroine, though she now goes by Iida. The scene in which her name changes is one of the most distressing in the whole film. Played as a sixtysomething adult by Sanna-Kaisa Palo,...
Je’vida is the given name of its heroine, though she now goes by Iida. The scene in which her name changes is one of the most distressing in the whole film. Played as a sixtysomething adult by Sanna-Kaisa Palo,...
- 6/9/2023
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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