FIREKEEPERS
Norway, 2007, 57 min
Rossella Ragazzi
28.01.2012 20:40
This film narrates the meeting with Sara Marielle Gaup and Lawra Somby, two young performers of joik (Sami chanting technique), born in the north and the south of Sápmi (the cultural nationhood of Sami people in North Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia). They have come together through a creative musical project called “Adjágas” which in Sami means “the state between sleep and awakening”. In this peculiar state one can unveil reality and tune into the most profound and original joiks. Adjágas, in this way bring the musical-lyrical practice of joik toward the international musical scene by performing with musicians of different horizons, and adapting its performances to the context of reception. The protagonists express different ways of life and concerns, relating also to what it means to be young artists with an indigenous background, having to work a way into the musical industry. It is also a film about what in the waves of the past is worth struggling for understanding, and how joik brings together everyday life, politics and spirituality and becomes a language healing the pain from the colonial history of the past.
Rossella Ragazzi, born in Rome, Italy 1965. Filmmaker, ethnographer and associate professor in visual anthropology and museology at the University of Tromsø, Norway. Graduated from National Italian Film School in Rome, and University of Paris and got PhD in Visual Anthropology in Ireland. She co-founded with Britt Kramvig and Ingeborg Solvang film company Sonar Film in 2003.
Director: Rossella Raggazzi
Production: Sonar Film Tromso
Language of dialogues: English, Sami, Norwegian
Language of subtitles: English, Czech
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