Marja Helander’s Birds in the Earth, recently screened at the konstazer kurz.film.spiele, will be shown at Brest Short Film Festival held from November 12–17. Birds in the Earth is selected as part of the UFO Competition and will be shown on Wednesday, November 13 at 19:30 and Friday, November 15, at 19:30 at the Petit Théâtre.
Birds in the Earth is a short film based on dance. The main characters are two young Sámi ballet students; Birit and Katja Haarla. The movie tells a bit melancholic story through their dance performances. At the same time it examines the deeper questions of the ownership of Sámi land.
Marja Helander is a Finnish photographic and video artist. She graduated from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki in 1999. Her earlier work explored her own identity between the Finnish and the Sámi culture. Helander’s recent photographic work has focused on Northern landscape. The accent of the work is on the postcolonial topics in the Sámi area, focusing particularly on the global mining industry. The encounter between nature and mankind is not harmonious, but destructive. On the other hand, her video works are playful, exploring the contradiction between the traditional Sámi way of life and the modern society. Her recent short film Birds in the Earth won the Risto Jarva Prize and the main prize of the National Competition at Tampere Film Festival 2018. Marja Helander has participated in solo and group exhibitions and her works have been acquired for various public collections in Finland and abroad.
The Brest Short Film Festival, November 12–17 2019, Brest, France
More information: Brest Short Film Festival