Marja Viitahuhta & Ánnámáret’s Vuoiŋŋat (Spirits) wins Best Nordic Art Film and Elli Vuorinen’s Flower Show Best Nordic Animation at the Minimalen Short Film Festival 2026

Marja Viitahuhta & Ánnámáret‘s Vuoiŋŋat (Spirits) (featured image) won the Best Nordic Art Film award and Elli Vuorinen‘s Flower Show the Best Nordic Animation at the Minimalen Short Film Festival. The festival took place January 13–18, 2026 in Trondheim, Norway.

Vuoiŋŋat (Spirits) (2025) is a cameraless animation by visual artist and filmmaker Marja Viitahuhta brings to life the 1839 drawings of northern lights by French illustrator Louis Bévalet, drawn in the Alta region in Sápmi. This digital space is filled by the sound of the indigenous Sámi musician Ánnámáret yoiking the homeless spirits – Vuoiŋŋat – and her luohti is accompanied by Ilkka Heinonen’s jouhikko aka carelian bowed lyre and electronic music by Turkka Inkilä.

The work is dedicated to the memory of the Sámi ancestors who were exhumed from their graves in burial grounds in Sápmi approximately 100–150 years ago in the name of research carried out for racist reasons. Some of the remains have only recently been reburied in Sápmi.

Elli Vuorinen‘s Flower Show (2024) toys with a metaphor for the female condition that presents women as cultivated flowers that are expected to maintain a pre-established system. Until the seed of something can shake up the status quo.