The historical struggles of the Sámi people can be seen through the extraordinary life of Indigenous activist Niillas Somby.
Niillas Somby, Mihkkal Hætta, Stig Frode Henriksen
Norway
2025
In Northern Sámi with English subtitles
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Linn Henriksen
Screenwriter
Liselotte Wajstedt
Cinematography
Mauri Lähdesmäki
Editor
Mauri Lähdesmäki
Original Music
Mathias Josefsson
Marja Helander
Marja Helander, born 1965, is an award-winning Sámi artist and filmmaker from Finland who graduated from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. Her early work explored her identity between Finnish and Sámi cultures, while her recent photographic work has focused on the northern landscape and the effects of the mining industry. Helander’s films include Áfruvvá (2022) and Birds In The Earth (2018), which won several awards and was included in the 2019 Sundance Film Festival short film competition.
Photo by Riikka Vaahtera
Liselotte Wajstedt
Liselotte Wajstedt, born 1973, is a Sámi artist and filmmaker whose work spans film and video, collage, painting, photography, sculpture, textiles, and installation. She studied painting and arts at The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, as well as animation and experimental filmmaking at Gotland University, with a special emphasis on documentary storytelling and scriptwriting. Her experimental body of work comprises over two dozen shorts and feature-length films, including the recent short film Eadni (2023) and the feature documentary The Silence in Sápmi (2022).
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Late Fame
Based on a novella by Arthur Schnitzler (Eyes Wide Shut) this is a sly, poignant comedy about vanity and art from director Kent Jones, starring Willem Dafoe as a mailman belatedly acclaimed for a book of poetry he wrote in his youth.
Memory of Princess Mumbi
In 2093, a filmmaker arrives in the African village of Umata, where he meets Princess Mumbi, a woman torn between love, legacy, and the future of storytelling. It's a fabulous genre-blending fable about memory, invention and cinematic resistance.
Lessons of Darkness
Werner Herzog's unforgettable documentary reveals the unfolding disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames in 1991 as a sweeping inferno of mesmerizing power.
Beau Travail
Inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Claire Denis' transfixing Beau Travail is set in East Africa. Sgt Galoup (Denis Lavant) reflects on his time in the French Foreign Legion, and the impact of the handsome Sentain (Gregoire Colin).
But I'm a Cheerleader
Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is the perfect All-American Girl, or so she thinks. That is until she’s shipped off to conversion therapy. This pitch black comedy is wrapped in a saccharine bow, featuring the icon herself, RuPaul, as a conversion counsellor.