[Author’s note: Anna Hints identifies as non-binary but acknowledges having a female body, and therefore uses “she/her” and “they/them” interchangeably. For the sake of consistency, and given the themes dealt with in the film, this article uses female pronouns]
The Film Verdict first spoke to Anna Hints in January, over Zoom, before Smoke Sauna Sisterhood had had its first public screening at Sundance.
“It went very well,” she tells us nine months later, in person, at the Viennale. Since then, the film has traveled far and wide, and is going to travel a bit more as Estonia’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar. Hints is looking forward to that, as she enjoys talking to audiences. It can be as cathartic as the sauna experience depicted in the documentary.
At the beginning of the year, she was curious about reactions in Sundance, given Utah’s Mormon component and the general attitude Americans have vis-à-vis nudity. Predictably, most questions about the film’s physical element have come from men. Hints explains: “They start coming to terms with the fact nudity doesn’t have to be sexual. They were also shocked I included the shots where someone bleeds in the sauna, but that’s perfectly natural in my culture. There’s still a lot of stigma surrounding menstruation.”
Female viewers have responded very warmly to the concept of the sauna as a safe space, particularly when the film has screened in areas where women’s rights are at risk. “There’s a scene where the women talk about being in control of their own bodies,” says Hints. “That one gets a lot of applause.”
But there have been surprising reactions as well: “One woman said the nudity wasn’t sexual because the people I show in the movie are not attractive. I realized that connects to how she perceives her own body. And the concept of the safe space starts from there, we have to create it in our head as well.”
Speaking of bodies, did Hints’ gender identity contribute to how the shots were constructed? An outsider’s view of sorts? “I never thought of it that way, but you’re right. I’m not in conflict with my body, so I was able to have a neutral view of it when I went to the sauna with my producer to understand what we were going to show and how. There is a beauty at play, but it’s not erotic. You and I know this, because we come from that culture,” she says, alluding to my Finnish background. “And I think it’s good other people are also starting to realize it.”
Has the nudity caused any problems in terms of distribution? “We had to change our poster for the Greek market, because the one we’re using in other countries was deemed too explicit. But the content of the film itself was met with no objections.”
