Experience a nearly 100-year-old silent film about everyday Sámi life with new, live music when Riksscenen, in collaboration with the Tromsø International Film Festival and the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute, shows the restored film By Sledge and Reindeer in Inka Länta’s Winterland from 1926.
The film concert invites you to a double experience: Letting your gaze wander between living images from another time, and at the same time listening to a pulsating, dynamic soundscape that changes the film’s time frame. The music combines composed parts and improvisations, and films that mix documentary and staged scenes – which gives the experience a completely new and unique dimension.
The film comes from a time when depictions of Sámi life were often characterized by an outside perspective. What is authentic, what is staged? Where is the line between curiosity, representation and a colonial gaze? In the silent film concert, the Sámi musicians become narrators, giving voice and sound to a people, a story on their own terms.
“We are doing a kind of Sámi takeover. We are taking ownership of history and connecting it to what it is like to be Sámi today. Some of that might be hidden from an outsider audience, but makes sense to us”, says Lávre Johan Eira.
Contributors
Lávre Johan Eira – vocal/joik
Hildá Länsman – vocals/joik
Tuomas Norvio – electronics and sound design
Svante Henryson – cello
Get your tickets from Riksscene’s website.
Riksscenen
Riksscenen is the Norwegian Hub for Traditional Music and Dance, presenting all kinds of folk music and folk dance, including Norwegian, Sámi and different music and dance from around the world.
By Sledge and Reindeer in Inka Länta’s Winterland was first screened with new music at the Tromsø International Film Festival in 2025, and has since been presented in both Sweden and Scotland.
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The production was commissioned by the Tromsø International Film Festival and is supported by the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute (FINNO), the Norwegian-Finnish Cultural Foundation, Kulturdirektoratet, and BarentsKult.