[Short film] #Ákhuin

Radio-JusSunná / Sunná Nousuniemi (#Sámi) & Guhtur Niillas Rita Duomis / Tuomas Kumpulainen with Ááná Jyyrki Sáárá-Máárjá / Saara-Maria Salonen

"With the singular Sámi oral storytelling tradition of joik at its center, ÁHKUIN is a visual and musical call-and-response between a grandmother and her descendants. Archival interviews and the joik of Maarit-áhkku (dir. Sunná Máret Nousuniemi’s grandmother) unspool as a connective thread across time, inviting the viewer through a portal into this corner of Sápmi. Here, the rhythms of time are set by the daily tasks that assured the survival of those who came before; seemingly mundane chores — carrying water from the river, setting up the sauna, boiling reindeer bone marrow — offer up gifts of memory, music, and Indigenous knowledge.

"As in Indigenous communities the world over, colonization has profoundly shaped recent Sámi history through stories of loss. Drawing aesthetic inspiration from sources as diverse as duodji (Sámi handicrafts and land-based knowledge systems), the work of David Lynch, Pauliina Peodoroff’s Matriarkaatti (Matriarchy), and the environmentally focused, community-based art of Niillas Holmberg, Jenni Laiti and Outi Pieski, ÁHKUIN presents a melancholy yet playful Sámi story with lessons for a new era defined by giving and receiving."

Watch:
https://www.reciprocity.org/films/ahkuin

#Sápmi #joik #DCEFF #IndigenousStorytellers
#IndigenousFilms #OceansAreLife #ReciprocityProject #Reciprocity #IndigenousFilmMakers #IndigenousWisdom #ProtectTheSacred #IndigenousKnowledge #Reciprocity #duodji #colonization #Maaritáhkku #Matriarkaatti #Matriarchy #CulturalSurvival

"As for the wind farms, the #Sámi already fought and won their case in court in 2021 [AND YET THAT OUTCOME IS BEING IGNORED!], thirteen years after they first began advocating against the wind farms’ construction. Ironically, the government set up a #TruthAndReconciliation Commission in 2018, not only to investigate the state’s assimilation policy and its consequences, but also to establish measures promoting greater equality for minorities in Norway. The investigation is soon to be published.

"When it came to removing the wind turbines, Sámi people have had to resort to civil disobedience to get the government’s attention. On February 23, protesters occupied the reception area of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and blocked the entrances of several other government departments across Oslo.

“'#IndigenousRights are #HumanRights. You can’t weigh them against anything else,' says sixteen-year-old Jostein Tennø Loe, a socialist youth board representative. He was among the first activists to be arrested outside the Ministry of Finance. As they were carried away, passersby could hear the sound of #joik, the traditional Sámi singing once suppressed by the government’s #assimilation efforts. 'When #Norway, as a democratic state, ignores human rights and ignores the supreme court five hundred days after the ruling, something is deeply wrong,' Jostein says. For the Sámi, who are no strangers to conflict over land, the court’s ruling in their favor came a century too late — but the five hundred days that followed were nothing but a slap in the face.

"Not only is #ReindeerHerding a significant part of their culture — it’s also a crucial arena for the Sámi people of #Fosen to practice their language. Considering that the Norwegian government is single-handedly responsible for pushing the language to the brink of extinction, the prime minister’s lack of remorse was damning."

#CulturalGenocide #SamiPeople #Resistance #IndigenousPeople #ShameOnNorway