In 2017, the National Museum of Finland announced a plan to repatriate over 2000 artifacts to the Indigenous Sámi people. In the lead-up to the first exhibition of these pieces at the Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida in 2021, the director-general of the National Museum of Finland, Elina Antilla, declared, “The objects are returning to their original family context. The objects are very useful as prototypes when younger people are learning the traditional techniques.” But that’s merely the beginning. As Suvi West and Anssi Kömi illustrate in their moving, deeply personal documentary Homecoming, the return of the objects will not only launch a re-discovery and deeper understanding of a way of life, but write new chapters in the Sámi people’s past, present, and future.
Finnish Sámi filmmaker Suvi West goes in front of camera — with Anssi Kömi (mostly) behind it — traveling to Helsinki, Germany, and Sweden where she’s granted access to museum archives to personally connect with both the artifacts that are returning to her community, and just as importantly, those that aren’t. Boxed away and stored on shelves, the objects that have been gathered by collectors for over 150 years are often more valued for their worth than their cultural significance. When it’s commented that there’s been “no interest in the stories, only the items” themselves, the point is underscored when West reveals that a hat on display is facing the “wrong way around.”
It can be tricky for directors to place themselves at the center of a documentary, but West nimbly utilizes her personal journey to address issues that aren’t just unique to the Sámi, but to Indigenous communities around the world that are working through the same conversations. By gatekeeping cultural articles, museums have become second-hand interpreters, disconnected and divorced from the peoples they are striving to understand, even as they establish what becomes common, accepted knowledge about them. West affectingly connects this to the knock-on effect this has on how she navigates the world as a Sámi. The representation of her people is a construct that leaves her, paradoxically, feeling booth too Sámi and not enough, depending on the context.
As West continues her journey, she becomes increasingly sensitive to what role she plays in speaking for cultures other than her own, and careful about inadvertently exploiting her position as a storyteller. A powerful sequence finds her working out aloud if it’s appropriate for a sacred drum — carefully crafted for their original owners, and of which there are less than a hundred left in the world — to be shown on camera. And while she’s eager to share the spirit and energy she feels from the ancestors that are guiding her — there’s a gorgeous moment when she feels the presence of her grandfather — she also ensures hers alone isn’t the voice speaking for the Sámi.
Each screening at the Toronto International Film Festival begins with a land acknowledgement, asking audiences to “reflect on the history of the land you are watching from.” It’s well intentioned, but when its immediately followed by the next pre-roll bumpers before the feature, the gesture can lose a bit of meaning. This is not to find fault with the festival — the correctives to the long, complex, colonial shadow cast in Canada, Finland, and countries around the world has no single, easy, or comprehensive approach. However, these actions can often make it seem like the cultural life of the Indigenous communities they are addressing has ceased, stuck in the amber of history. But the words “We’re still here” — uttered when the Sámi artifacts finally reach Siida — are a poignant reminder of the cultures that are continuing to thrive, aiming to reclaim and rewrite what has been taken away for far too long.
Director: Suvi West, Anssi Kömi
Screenplay: Suvi West
Cast: Suvi West, Heini Wesslin, Eeva-Kristiina Nylander, Áile Aikio
Producers: Janne Niskala
Cinematography: Anssi Kömi
Editing: Hanna Kuirinlahti
Music: Georg Buljo
Sound: Frode Hvatum
Production companies: Vaski Filmi (Finland), Ten Thousand Images (Norway)
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF Docs)
In Finnish, Sámi
76 minutes
