Jarkko Ambrusin, text
Maija Tammi, pictures
Marjo Väliaho, translation
Biret Ristan Sara shows how one yoiks.
It is 11 p.m. at Klubi in Tampere on Saturday evening. The atmosphere is still expectant; the Sámi Night of Tampere Film Festival is about to take off. Quite a large number of people are already watching films showed on several screens. Among the audience, colourful Sámi costumes are conspicuous and a cheerful buzz of conversation fills the air.
A pair of the traditional Sámi shoes.
Varpu Falck, who is selling CDs by Sámi musicians, proudly presents her costume: "The Sámi costumes are formal dresses that are worn for example in weddings and funerals and on high school graduation days. The costumes vary from region to region, and they also change a bit all the time; there are certain trends and fashions in every season. So, the Sámi costumes are not just traditional attire as, for example, the Finnish national costumes are."
The event's first performer is Biret Risten Sara, coming from Karasjok, Norway. Yoik blasts at Klubi, and the audience is listening rapturously. Little by little, the audience joins the shamanistic dance and the atmosphere becomes more relaxed.
"We wear these Sámi costumes with pride specifically because they are a symbol of our own ethnic identity. In Finland, the Sámi people live in five Sámi regions and each region has a traditional costume of its own.
The audience dances in time with Amoc.
The music is definitely the main thing at Sámi Night, although there are also film screenings. Especially as Amoc started his testosterone-filled rapping, the front of the Pakkahuone section of Klubi got filled with young Sámi people who danced furiously. Astonished, the festival audience sitting in the gallery observed how the Sámi rap music made people dance.
The director Daniel Elliot enjoys the general atmosphere of the festival.
"It is great that film festivals organize different kinds of theme evenings that showcase various cultures. I myself have not yet watched Sámi films, but I intend to. Aren't the Sámi people a bit like the Welsh in the UK?" asks Daniel Elliot, a British director.
The Sámi rock singer Tiina Sanila finds it important that besides films and music, film festivals also offer an opportunity to showcase normal Sámi life and culture as well.
Tiina Sanila Band rocks on the stage.
"Many people still have a stereotypical view of the Sámi people as people who booze and have bad habits. However, our everyday life is similar to the everyday life of any other people. Of course, the Sámi culture receives both good and bad influences from other cultures as well. But it was great that when we presented our culture at the Central Square in Tampere, many people approached us and were interested to know more about our culture," she says.
According to Sanila, there is at the moment some kind of Sámi boom. Especially the media gives nowadays a lot of positive publicity to the Sámi culture, but Sanila reminds that the things could be better.
"For example, the king of Norway has publicly apologized to the Norwegian Sámi people for the wrongs and injustices of the past. Perhaps the Finnish Sámi people are waiting for something like this."
The violinist of the band Vilddas puts his soul into the performance.
At 3.30 a.m., when the serving of alcohol has stopped, the festival visitors slowly head for the exits and homes. I am watching the film Last Joik in Sámi Forest in which the reindeer breeders and Greenpeace representatives let the sparks fly in the forests of Lapland. After all, both parties are concerned about the same issue, the thinning of the forests, but the people of the South and the northerners do not reach the same wavelength. I wonder why it is like this.
Read more:
Rapping in the Inari Sámi Language (FN 9th of March 2007)
Updated 21 March 2007 17:10
