Marja Helander & Liselotte Wajstedt‘s short film In My Hand has been selected to Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, taking place from April 24 to May 5, 2025 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America.

Earlier this year the film won the Tromsø Palm Award for best short film at the Tromsø International Film Festival in Norway.

In My Hand tells the story of the Sámi struggle on both a personal and historical level. The main character is Niillas Somby, a Sámi who is facing a 21-year prison sentence for attempted sabotage.

The film is screeded in the short film program Through the Cracks:

Friday, April 25th at 8:45 PM
Tuesday, April 29 at 2:45 PM

Marja Helander (b. 1965) is an award-winning Sámi artist and filmmaker from Finland. She graduated from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki in 1999. Her earlier work explored her identity between the Finnish and Sámi cultures. Her recent photographic work has focused on the northern landscape, exploring the link between the mining industry and today’s standard of living and culture of consumption, particularly the impact of mining on the sensitive northern nature. Her latest works include ÁFRUVVÁ (2022) and BIRDS IN THE EARTH (2018) that won several awards and was a part of Sundance Film Festival 2019 short film competition.

Liselotte Wajstedt (b. 1973) is a Sámi artist and filmmaker whose work spans from film and video to collage, painting, photography, sculpture, textiles, and installation. Behind her she has an education in painting and arts from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, in addition to animation and experimental filmmaking with special emphasis on documentary storytelling and scriptwriting from the and Gotland University. Her experimental moving image body of work comprises over two dozen shorts and feature-length films. Her latest works include the short film EADNI (2023) and the feature documentary THE SILENCE IN SÁPMI (2022).

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival
April 24 to May 4, 2025
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

More information: Hot Docs: In My Hand