- It became obvious during the time we were filming that the climate issue is so incredibly urgent in the Sami areas, says the director and former SVT employee Thomas Jackson.
The impact of climate change on the reindeer husbandry plays a big role in the film, and how it ultimately threatens the entire culture.
Director Thomas Jackson, who previously made, among other things, the documentary "The Forest", says that he wanted to portray nature and its sensitivity.
- What I have tried to do in the film is to try to highlight nature as Sami culture has traditionally perceived it: that nature is a subject in itself that has a value outside of the role it plays for us humans, says Thomas Jackson.
Sami mythology should open eyes
The film Historjá - Stygn för Sápmi is based on Britta Marakatta-Labba's 24 meter long embroidery where her own family history is mixed with traces of Sámi history.
She herself participated in the 70s in the battle over the damming of the Altaälven in Norway.
In the embroidery, a flock of crows comes flying over the mountain and takes the form of policemen dragging away the protesters.
- Here I try to attack different parts of the story with the needle.
Then it becomes resistance art.
But I'm not that agitator artist.
I want to tell the story in a different way, and then I tell it based on Sami mythology, where they had different animals that were put into a political context.
I think that can be a very good way to work to open people's eyes, says Britta Marakatta-Labba.