Je'vida (gala screening in the presence of Katja Gauriloff, cast and crew)

Katja Gauriloff: Je'vida (FI 2023).

2023

Coming-of-Age / Nature / Journey / Memory / Female Stories / Family Ties / Society

Theme: Gala Films

Country: Finland

Director: Katja Gauriloff

Screenplay: Katja Gauriloff, Niillas Holmberg

Starring: Agafia Niemenmaa, Heidi Juliana Gauriloff, Sanna-Kaisa Palo, Seidi Haarla, Erkki Gauriloff, Matleena Fofonoff

Production: Joonas Berghäll, Satu Majava, Anna Nuru / Oktober

Duration: 100 min

Rating: K12

Bio Rex, Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) Gala Screening, 22 Sep 2023

Kira Schroeder (HIFF 2023): 

" “Mikä on oikea kysymys? Onko se keitä me ollaan? Vai mistä me tullaan? Vai keitä te ootte, tai olitte? Mikä on tarpeeksi häveliäs kysymys?” "

" Sanna (Seidi Haarla) utelee tietoja edesmenneen äitinsä suvusta tädiltään Iidalta (Sanna-Kaisa Palo). Kaksikko tapaa ensimmäisen kerran lähtiessään pohjoiseen tyhjentämään suvun kotitilaa myyntiä varten. "

" Mutta mitä kerrottavaa jää jäljelle, jos ihminen on pakotettu luopumaan omasta identiteetistään? "

" “Täällä ei puhuta lappia! Teette tulevalle itsellenne palveluksen. Suomen kieli on kuin lämmin vaate, jonka kanssa tarkenette läpi elämän”, laukoo pienen Je’vida-tytön opettaja 1950-luvulle sijoittuvassa takaumassa. Pikkuhiljaa yhteydet omiin juuriin katkaistaan ja tilalle iskostetaan häpeä ja raivo, josta ei voi kertoa kenellekään. "

" Samankaltaisia teemoja on nähty elokuvakankaalla esimerkiksi Klaus Härön 1950-luvun Pohjois-Ruotsiin sijoittuvassa Näkymätön Elina -elokuvassa, mutta Katja Gauriloffin ohjaama ja yhdessä Niillas Holmbergin kanssa käsikirjoittama Je’vida on täysin omalaatuinen. Tribecan elokuvajuhlilla ensi-iltansa saanut teos on maailman ensimmäinen pitkä koltansaamenkielinen näytelmäelokuva. "

" 4:3-formaatissa kuvattu, maagisen kaunis mustavalkoinen elokuva etenee kolmessa aikatasossa. Näyttelijät tekevät erinomaista työtä – Je’vidaa lapsena näyttelevä Agafia Niemenmaa on suorastaan ilmiömäinen. " Kira Schroeder

Quoted by HIFF 2023: Production notes: " An aunt and her niece who have never met before drive to Lapland to empty a house they’ve inherited. Turns out the withdrawn and distrusting aunt had been a victim of the assimilation policies and the niece has to make a big decision. By taking interest in each other they find value in themselves and their roots. " Production notes

Quoted by HIFF 2023: Jennie Kermode: " 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. (…) " 

" Shot in a richly toned black and white which brings out the important details of the boreal landscape, Je’vida is an ode to the importance of home, family and a sense of belonging. A follow-up to director Katja Gauriloff’s Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest, which screened at the Berlinale in 2017, it featured in Tribeca 2023, and constitutes the next step in putting the Skolt Sámi firmly on the map. " Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film

Language: Skolt Sámi

Subtitles: Swedish, Finnish

Distribution: Future Film

Print source: Future Film

Cinematography: Tuomo Hutri

Editing: Timo Peltola

Music: Laura Naukkarinen

Sound: Jukka Nurmela

Costume design: Anu Pirilä

In collaboration with Yle

...

Je'vida is the name of the protagonist, a Skolt Sámi woman.

The film is in the black and white Academy format.

AA: The Sámi people are indigenous peoples living by the Arctic Sea in Nordic countries and Russia. Katja Gauriloff, whose mother is Skolt Sámi, has brought this cultural tradition to brilliant cinematic life in the medium-length Huuto tuuleen (A Shout into the Wind) and the feature film Kuun metsän Kaisa (Kaisa's Enchanted Forest), a masterpiece of Finnish cinema.

Je'vida, Gauriloff's third Skolt Sámi movie, takes place today. Sanna is puzzled by the absolute withdrawnness of her aunt Iida when they visit North Lapland to clear the family estate that is now up for sale. Iida turns increasingly morose when they empty the home from its belongings which she is aggressively eager to burn in a bonfire. Everything brings up memories, and many memories are painful.

In flashbacks to the year 1952 and after, we share the memories of girlhood of the little Je'vida, renamed Ida / Iida, of her school days. She does not know Finnish and only speaks Skolt Sámi, which she is forbidden to use. The teachers are authoritarian, the school discipline resembles military drill. Sámi clothes are banished. Schoolmates bully the one who is different. If a scared child wets her bed, the punishment is severe. Other children even force her to a hole in the frozen lake. Racism is rampant, and Sámi people are disparaged as Russians because of their Russian names and Greek Orthodox faith.

Interspersed are memories of the safety of the nature-bound Skolt Sámi childhood home, making a living as fishers and sheep-rearers. It is a tough life, but Je'vida grows to independence early, when her grandfather dies and her mother has a miscarriage. Having finished school, she finds work in a restaurant and learns to hold her own even in matters of dating.

Je'vida is a burning reminder and a "J'accuse" memorandum of Finland's own racist oppression and colonialistic history. The full coming to terms is yet to come.

But the full grandeur of Je'vida is based on something even much more profound. The Sámi culture has a deeply spiritual legacy, and Katja Gauriloff's loving tributes are unique contributions to its revival. They are entirely cinematic, emerging in a stream of consciousness. reaching beyond consciousness, to the unconscious, and to an ancient cultural memory.

They are poetic dialogues between the temporal and the eternal conducted under the Northern Lights.