Thank you very much for meeting with me. It is an honour to talk with you remotely across distances all the way from Melbourne to Tromsø.
You have created a beautiful film in The Tundra Within Me – nominated for 3 prestigious Amanda Awards in Norway – where the vast landscape becomes a character in its own right and the two protagonists operate within a northern Norwegian twilight zone that shifts in blue hues and the film title highlights the many spaces we ourselves carry within us. I look forward to discussing the film further with you, but first, let us talk about your background and career.
You hold a PhD in performing arts from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and have since gone from strength to strength as a Sámi director, screenwriter, poet celebrated by the Nordic Council Literature Prize nomination for Tireless words (2012) in 2016, and actor hailing from the Guovdageaidnu (Sámi) / Kautokeino (same name in Norwegian) community in Norway.
What prompted your transition from acting to directing and has your previous acting career benefitted your directorial insights and prowess?
Yes definitely, being an actor has helped me very much when directing. I have a better understanding of how I want a director to talk to me to get me into the right mood. It was quite natural for me to take the step from acting to directing and writing and knowing what story to tell. And I had been directing also on stage and had had years to gradually make the transition into directing. I started with small production on stage with initially one actor or solos and then went on to doing bigger things.
What is the most important aspect of film as a medium?
I think first of all I can freely shoot in Sámi language as the audience is used to reading subtitles and with the images I can invite audiences worldwide into my culture as these images are so strong. As an actor I have been travelling a lot but now I no longer need to do so. The film does the travelling for me.
Are there any common themes that interconnect the six films that make up your repertoire to date?
There are some recurring themes; first and foremost the tension between the traditional lifestyle and the modern lifestyle, having a foot in the urban and the traditional, and the struggle to keep your mother tongue alive while at the same time having to embrace the majority language.
I think I have been dealing with that a lot and many people are dealing with that still today when you are having access to several different cultures and are facing the dilemma to choose what to prioritise. And it is really hard to leave a traditional small society and it is hard to come back and you are always connected to your roots. We see a clear example of this with the experience of Lena in The Tundra Within Me (Risten Anine Gaup).
This 2023 directorial debut film, in the sense that it is your first feature film, goes by the additional title or subheading Eallogierdu and is screened at participating venues of the Scandinavian Film Festival 2024 – held nationwide in 7 Australian cities. You here talk about external sceneries and landscapes. In doing so, you simultaneously open our eyes to the inner landscape or the landscape within characters living in a windswept and snowy Sápmi in Northern Norway. A film predominantly concerned with Sámi culture, it has been marketed as:
“a poignant exploration of heritage, authenticity, resilience and identity. Featuring awe-inspiring icy landscapes, this drama reveals the depth of connection between the Sámi people, the environment and reindeer herding, and is a beautiful story of new love and returning home.”
I am interested in exploring your idea of the landscape within all of us. Giovanna Bruno, in her Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film (2002) famously engages in a type of emotional cartography and refers to the city as a map of love or a “body-city on a tender map” where lovers meet in a way reminiscent of how the male lover in The English Patient (Minghella 1996) traces his woman’s skin and claims it as his corporeal landscape to own.
How does the cold landscape in The Tundra Within Me, in turn, become a backdrop that echo the lovers’ emotions?
I have always been more connected to the landscape than I had been aware of so it feels I really belong to the tundra – it allows me to breathe more easily. And in this movie, both lead characters lose themselves and then slowly find themselves again and they dare to find the strength to open themselves up to new things.
They make decisions and dare to deal with the consequences. The tundra within is referring to that: to finding oneself. And I hope the audience will find the strength, in turn, to find the tundra within themselves as well. And it is important to treasure your heritage and to remain in touch with knowledge and landscape.
Scandinavian cinema has taken Australian audiences by storm, with often dark filmic narratives that pertain to Nordic Noir. What makes your own sweeping scenes of a land far away so intriguing to Australian audiences?
We are inviting audiences into a lifestyle that many people do not have the ability to see or experience and it is beautifully shot by Director of Photography Anders Hoft. The nature was really with us. All that you see is shot in natural lighting and on location without extra effects in an almost neorealist manner in a natural setting.
Please comment on the two main characters: What makes theirs such a believable love story?
It is a universal and contemporary love story that audiences can recognise themselves with no matter what culture they belong to. This is the first Sámi contemporary love story ever and I think audiences are yearning for it without knowing.
When the love story is so down to earth, realistic and authentic and done with humour, that is when it sometimes becomes the most effective. When we dare to be as naked and vulnerable as the main characters are, then we can meet love in the right space. Lena ultimately meets herself and when she does, she meets love.
What does Oslo versus Sápmi represent in the film? Are they polar opposites?
We don’t see Oslo that much, but it is about the urban versus the traditional lifestyle. Should I stay or should I go? The constant conundrum.
You yourself spent a decade gaining your living as a reindeer herder. Is The Tundra Within Me somewhat autobiographical? Do you draw on your own experiences in your portrayal of the main characters?
Yes, the film is based on my own life which adds authenticity to the narrative. I have experienced what Mahtte (Nils Ailu Kemi) is going through: the fear, the hard work but he is not giving up as I did – I gave up. The hardest decision in my life was selling my reindeer herd and leaving the traditional lifestyle and so making this film has allowed me to also find the tundra within me again but not with the reindeer anymore.
For many years I had been feeling that I don’t belong to the tundra, but now, writing the script and shooting it at my family’s because my brothers are still doing reindeer husbandry – we went to their herd and lived in their cabins where I have also been working as a reindeer herder – has been a very good journey for me while making this film.
It has helped me heal myself. And during shooting I was able to connect perhaps more readily with the main actors as they knew that I had personally experienced and lived through what they are seeking to re-enact on screen (with Mahtte being himself a reindeer herder as well as an actor).
[me] Thank you and what a beautiful thing to say. There is a profound sense of poetry in this film – with the idea of moving very deep within and beyond or below what is on the surface and finding what you are yearning for and that is not tangible. You can see that with Lena as a character who is sometimes quiet and reflecting and reminiscing, not always needing to give voice to her thoughts.
What sentiments does Sámi joiking provoke within you and why is this form of cultural expression so unique? Is there a deep sense of yearning behind the songs and what might this yearning be linked with or related to?
It is a traditional way of singing and communicating with landscape, people and animals; with everything and everyone we love and there are personal and reindeer joiks – even the mosquito has its own joik. The one performing the joik is not in focus but the one that is being joiked is.
So if I joik you then you are in focus and when Lena is joiking her father she feels she is connecting with him while she is less in focus. It is part of the animistic religions. When Sámi were christened they burnt the Sámi drums but they could not take the yoking away. It is spiritual but you also use it in childrearing and education. And all the joiks of the characters are authentic joiks.
“Our workplace is not a playground for artists”. Please comment on the larger significance of this statement in the film.
Mahtte’s mother is not recognizing making art as real work. In her opinion it is like a hobby. In the film we see how Lena expresses herself through her art. She is a closed off person and feels alienated in her own culture but she slowly opens up and lets the pain out, finally finding the strength within her, both as a person and even more so in her art.
And we were so lucky to collaborate with the artist Máret Anne Sara. Her motives emphasize the main character’s journey as she changes and becomes more open and lets the pain out, and finally finds the strength within her, both as a person and as an artist. And Máret Anne’s art really lifts the visual potential of the film.
What is the most important message of the film and what will viewers have learnt as they walk out of the movie theatre?
In order to face the unknown, to open yourself up for love and to deal with the consequences, you first need to dare to find the strength within you. Even if social pressure and loyalty to family and tradition puts pressure on you. I also want it to be understood that it is vital that we maintain and restore the cultural heritage of reindeer herding and that the Sámi community cannot afford to push anyone out. Not everyone can or wants to be a reindeer herder, but everyone can fight to sustain and evolve Sámi culture and traditions for the better. Also through the arts.
What is the future of the Sámi language and culture in a fast-paced globalised world?
I really hope that coming generations will continue fighting for the remaining language and culture. The reindeer herding lifestyle is strongly threatened by external factors including loss of grazing areas to mining, wind power plants, establishing of leisure cottages in our grazing areas, increasing numbers of predators and climate change. And many young people are forced to give up the traditional lifestyle. We really need to remember that the love for each other, nature and animals are the most important for us to survive.
Does your film share some of the concerns of Sámi Blood? (which likewise made it to Melbourne and international film festivals, in 2017).
Both films are focussing on themes relating to leaving a society behind with strong traditions and a traditional lifestyle. In Sámi Blood, which is more historical, the main character runs away from her Sámi heritage and leaves the community.
In The Tundra Within Me the main character is not ashamed of her Sámi heritage but her own decision to give up the lifestyle is haunting her still. It is hard to leave and hard to come back to the traditional society and feel that you are no longer a part of it.
Finally, what is next on your agenda? Will you keep the focus on Scandinavia or would you be open to a collaboration with, e,g., your Australian counterpart, indigenous filmmaker, screenwriter, and cinematographer Warwick Thornton – if there was an opportunity for you to draw inspiration from each other?
I am focusing on indigenous stories, because my voice is needed there and that is what I want to spend my time on. And I am open to making films anywhere, not only in the snowy areas. Yes, I did meet Warwick Thornton at the Toronto International Film Festival 2023 where both our films premiered. He is an amazing filmmaker!
A Sámi saying for the road?
“Jo?i lea buoret go oru – Time Is A Ship That Never Casts Anchor” (translated to English by Harald Gaski) meaning that it is better to be on a journey, living a nomadic life, than just staying in one place.
I think this also refers to the main characters; when life is changing, try to do the best to see new opportunities, don’t be stuck in the past.
The Tundra Within Me screens as part of the 2024 SAXO Scandinavian Film Festival which continues at Palace Cinemas across Australia. For more information, including venues and program schedule, visit: www.scandinavianfilmfestival.com for details.
In Conversation with Sara Margrethe Oskal – director of The Tundra Within Me
Words: Dr Jytte Holmqvist
Images: Sara Margrethe Oskal – photo by David Jensen | The Tundra Within Me (film stills)