Download information from the original Forum catalogue (PDF)
Like a ballad Seitsemän laulua tundralta, stretching over seven songs, tells about the life of the Nenets, a nomad people in northern Russia. During Soviet times harassment and the pressure to assimilate increasingly took over their everyday life. After teaming up to film a series of documentaries on the life of the Nenets people in the 1990s, Markku Lehmuskallio and Anastasia Lapsui came up with the idea of making a feature film that "would be more expressive, multi-faceted and free". Anastasia Lapsui, herself a Nenet by birth, wrote the script in which she recreates the legends and her own experiences, and the film was made with amateur actors. Seitsemän laulua tundralta is the first feature film to be made in the Nenets language.
Anastasia Lpsui, born in the USSR in 1944, and Markku Lehmuskallio, born in Finland in 1938, have made numerous films together. In addition to Seitsemän laulua tundralta, the Forum also showed Sacrifice - A film About the Forest (1999), Mothers of Life (2002) and A Bride of Seventh Heaven (2004). Their newest film Sukunsa viimeinen is showing in the programme of Generation/K-Plus.
Production: Jörn Donner Productions
Camera: Johannes Lehmuskallio
Format: 35mm, b/w
Running Time: 85 min.
Language: Nenet, Russian
