Sámi vs. Sámi
Ellen - Astri Lundby (Sámi) • 58 minutes • 2026 • Sweden
Over a century ago, the Swedish state forcibly relocated Northern Sámi families into Southern Sámi territory, resulting in a long-running conflict over land, reindeer herding and, ultimately, the right to be Sámi. Since then, the state has remained silent.
Across generations, state decisions deepened the divide, leaving third-generation descendants Erik (Southern Sámi) and Inger Ann (Northern Sámi) facing each other in three emotionally charged court proceedings – a rare courtroom battle between Indigenous groups, documented on film for the first time.
Beneath the legal arguments lie two families shaped by different injustices. Is there ever a real winner when both sides are victims of the same history? How do you resolve an unresolvable conflict?
Director Ellen-Astri Lundby is a Sea Sámi descendant from Norway. This positions her outside the conflict, enabling her to explore it with a sense of belonging and perspective.
Director Biography: Ellen-Astri Lundby
Ellen Lundby has worked as an independent director and producer since 1989. She gained international recognition with Out of Place (2001) and The Fourth Wife (2004), but is best known for her award-winning and widely screened documentary Suddenly Sámi (2009), about identity, ethnicity, and the forced assimilation of the Sámi. The film reached over 430,000 viewers on Norwegian television, screened at festivals worldwide, won multiple awards including Nepal’s International Indigenous Film Festival, and continues to be used in academic settings. Her follow-up, Yoik Fever (2013), premiered at imagineNATIVE in Toronto, the world’s leading Indigenous film festival, and has been used in national educational programs in Norway. Lundby’s first feature documentary, Burning Memories (2018), screened theatrically, was broadcast on NRK, toured extensively in the north of Norway, and won both jury and audience awards at international festivals. Her films, often exploring themes of Sámi culture, history, and resilience, have reached broad audiences at home and abroad, establishing her as a vital voice in Indigenous and human rights cinema.
Hidden Steps
Kati Kallio, Laura Feodoroff (Sami) • 13 minutes • Finland • 2025 • Finnish
Siõrškuâđam - Hidden Steps is a personal story about reaching out to one's roots. The main character Laura, who grew up outside the Sámi area, walks the steps of the Sevettijärvi quadrille dance alone, as if trying to take over a language that is somehow familiar and yet foreign to her. The steps take you to childhood memories, to a familiar path, to a familiar pine tree, to an empty Skolt farm.
Bio - Director, Writer and Performer
Laura Feodoroff is a Skolt Sámi dance artist based in Helsinki, Finland. She has worked as a dance teacher, choreographer and dancer from 2008 in different kinds of artistic collaborations from musicals to youth projects in addition to dance schools.In past few years she has been working with Sámi film as a performer, but also behind the camera as a scriptwriter and choreographer-director. The now completed, partially autobiographical dance film Siõrškuäđam - Hidden Steps is her first artistic work related to the Skolt Sámi and at the same time her debut in the field of dance films.