Sami & indigenous film festival in Stockholm
Dellie maa, Sweden’s first indigenous film festival, arrived in Stockholm on Wednesday after two previous editions in Umeå and Tärnaby, in northern Sweden.
“The idea of Dellie maa is to share art and stories from indigenous communities around the globe. That is our main goal in a nutshell: To tell our own stories, not to be told about,” the organizers write on the festival’s website.
This year’s edition includes films from the aboriginals of Australia, the Maoris of New Zealand and indigenous communities from Greenland and Panama, among others.
“The importance of this festival is to create an arena to offer indigenous-made films to the audience, because it’s something that is not easy to get hold of or see,” Dellie maa festival founder Oskar Östergren tells Radio Sweden.
Important perspectives
Dellie maa means “at last” in the south Sami language.
“For us, when we started the festival, this was the thing that we felt, that this was something that was needed. So at last we have the possibility to spread these films,” Östergren says.
The Dellie maa festival collaborates with other indigenous film festivals around the world, including the Maoriland Film Festival in New Zealand and the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Festival in Toronto.
“We have this common goal to, through film, show the alternative stories told by indigenous peoples. So it’s this inside perspective that is important,” Östergren explains.
The festival kicks off on Wednesday evening, with the presence of Swedish Culture Minister Alice Bah Kuhnke, and the screenings will continue until Sunday.
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: Inuit-language movie named best Canadian film of all time by TIFF, Eye on the Arctic
Finland: TV-loving domestic reindeer becomes celebrity in Arctic Finland, Yle News
Norway: Tromso filmfest inspires US Arctic envoy, Deutsche Welle’s Iceblogger
Sweden: Polar Sea – major new Arctic adventure, science, social documentary series, Radio Canada International
United States: Brace yourself: More Alaska reality TV on the way, Alaska Dispatch
