“It is important that we keep the Sámi culture visible,” said Norwegian producer Mathis Ståle Mathisen, of Rein Film, who will will pitch two new Sámi features at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival.

Mathis Ståle Mathisen - Photo: Lukasz Zamaro



Norwegian director Mathis Ståle Mathisen is not sámi, he lives in Oslo and not up there, still he has since 2014 been a member of the filmmaking community around Kautokeino’s International Sámi Film Institute, and at the Berlin International Film Festival (15-25 February) he will pitch two new Sámi features at the Berlinale NATIVe selection for works-in-progress in the European Film Market.

Inspired by Pathfinder

”The Sámis have always been depicted on the screen, but something happened when Sámi director Nils Gaup made Pathfinder (Ofelas) in 1987; then the Sámis began telling their own stories themselves. Many Sámi filmmakers were inspired by Pathfinder, and they were supported by the Sámi Film Institute and its ceo Anne Lajla Utsi. Now it is not only Sámi film, but other Sámi arts, which are in strong development,” Mathisen explained.

Sámi Blood

Last year Sweden’s Göteborg International Film Festival – the largest in the Nordic countries – focused on Sámi film, “which is hotter than ever.” Swedish director Amanda Kernell’s Sámi Blood (Sameblod) won for Best Nordic Film and the Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award, before it entered the international festival circuit to score another 22 awards, including two top prizes in Venice, also at Tokyo, Thessalokini, Newport, Santa Barbara and Seattle.

Indigenous Film Conference

Sámi film is still making headlines: between 7-9 March, in Kautokeino, the International Sámi Film Institute has organised the Indigenous Film Conference in the Arctic, where representatives from the Sundance Film Institute, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Toronto Imaginative Film Festival and top executives from the Nordic film institute will participate in a programme to promote the Arctic industry.

Moved to Alta in Sami country

Mathisen, who will also attend the event, was born in Bergen, but at six he moved to Alta in Sami country, when both his parents got jobs there. He lived there till he started studying – at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at Trondheim, where he took a masters in film; he was then signed for camera work on Norwegian pubcaster NRK’s TV series Himmelblå and went on free-lancing till 2010, when he set up Rein Film.

With three producer colleagues Sveinung Svendsen, Odd Helge Haugsnes and Aleksander Olai Korsnes he opened offices in Oslo and Kirkenes in the Finnmark region, and there has been plenty of work for the new outfit. When the institute’s Sámi Film Lab launched its collection of 7 Sámi Stories, Mathisen had produced Egil Pedersen’s The Afflicted Animal for Rein Film and coproduced Ella Márjá’s Burning Sun for Davás Film.

Rein Film

Rein Film has realised one feature, Norwegian Hollywood-director Tommy Wirkola’s Kurt Josef Wagle and the Murder Mystery (2017), a sequel of his 2010 cult movie; ”it was due to an old friendship from Alta, and I was honored to work with Wirkola in between his Hollywood adventures. Being able to shoot main scenes at the coastal express quay in Stokmarknes made the production so much easier,” Mathisen recalled.

The company’s so far largest project has been Norwegian broadcaster NRK’s mystery thriller TV series, Monster (2017), a Nordic noir story created-written by Hans Christian Storrøsten about a local policewoman Hedda (Ingvild Holthe Bygdnes) and special investigator Joel Dreyer (Jakob Oftebro), who are trying to identify a serial killede operating in the North. Conceptual director Anne Sewitsky and Pål Jackman directed.

Finnmark landscape

”I was contacted by Monster producer Lasse Greve Alsos, because Rein Film had worked on several projects in the region, and with Filmfond Nord backing, the production was placed at Vardø; it is a good feeling to have shown that high-quality TV drama can be produced here, and North-Norwegian actors in a Finnmark landscape created by NRK and Rein appeared to be a golden recipee, also for the hotel and restaurant trade.”

The seven-episode series was awarded the 2017 European Script Award for Most Innovative Script of the Year by a Newcomer, and was recently been picked up by Starz for US premium pay TV. While NRK retains Scandinavian terrestrial rights, other DRG deals include sales to SBS for Australia, Canal Plus for France, RTS for Switzerland, Spike for Russia and Viaplay for SVOD in the Nordic countries.

Pitching two new Sámi features

Mathisen and Rein Film’s next production effort will be to pitch two new Sámi features, Egil Pedersen’s drama-comedy My Father Is a Danish Caveman and Per Ivar Jensen’s dark comedy Surviving Sápmi from a list of upcoming projects, also including Knut Erik Jensen’s novella film Morning, Egil Pedersen’s short The Girl with the Fish Jewellery, Per Josef Idivuoma’s short Boom Boom, about Sámi sabotage during WW2.

In My Father Is a Danish Caveman 12-year-old Elvira lives in northern Norway with her mother, Agnes, and Agnes’ girlfriend. All her life she has been told that her father is a Danish sperm donor, and she is convinced his a tough Dane. One day, however, there is a tent in the garden with Alfred – a charming, yet somewhat reckless Sámi man and her real father, who has been in an accident and decided to contact his daughter.

Surviving Sápmi,

Bjørn, the lead character in Surviving Sápmi, arrives at a small airport up north – he has inherited a house from a father he never knew, he wants to sell it and never return. However, his car breaks down, and he has to stay for the night at the nearest village – and he experiences the funniest day of his life. He appreciates village life – this was something he did not know he needed.

”I am also playing a guitar in the Attan metal band, and I am keen not to shout loudly just to shout - it is important to have something to tell, and this probably controls my preference on movies as well. It's important that the movies have something they want to convey, and that the film has a function beyond itself. This way it makes it important for me to highlight stories from northern Norway, especially Sámi stories,” said Mathisen.

Stories from the north

“A Sámi movie is probably as diverse in content and expressions as movies in general. It is natural that Sámi language is used, which is a contrast to Norwegian. In addition, most of the stories are from the north and often add a unique natStoure. Many Sámi films have a strong connection to nature, which often gives a more cruel and honest expression, especially in view of historical events which are more and more used in films.



“The oral storytelling tradition is strong in the Sami culture, and movies are the perfect storytelling media - here you can make people, language and culture visible in a very direct way. So it is important that the tales about the Sámi reach out to as many as possible, and then there is not much that can do it better than moving pictures. It is important that we keep this culture visible,” he concluded.

The Sámi

The Sámi (also known as the Saami) are app 80,000 Finno-Ugric people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of Norway and Sweden, northern parts of Finland, and the Murmansk Oblast of Russia. Formerly aka Lapps or Laplanders, they are the only people in Scandinavia recognised and protected under the international conventions of indigenous peoples, and accordingly the northernmost indigenous people of Europe.

“It is important that we keep the Sámi culture visible,” said Norwegian producer Mathis Ståle Mathisen, of Rein Film, who will will pitch two new Sámi features at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival