Seven Songs from the Tundra

Anastasia Lapsui and Markku Lehmuskallio have already made several documentaries together. They had the feeling that something was lacking in their documentary work, that they were too much dependent on the moment, so they decided to make a feature film together. That became Seven Songs from the Tundra, about the life of the Nenets, the indigenous people of the tundra in the extreme north of Russia. The film is not a drama feature in every respect: the first and last stories are documentaries, the rest is acted. The roles are played by the Nenets themselves and, despite their total lack of a theatre tradition, they lined up to take part. For the seventy roles in the film, 350 people did audition. It is their unpolished, natural way of acting that gives the film a high level of authenticity. The seven uncomplicated stories, shot in black & white, provide a beautifully detailed picture of how the people in this inhospitable region, plagued by mosquitoes and extreme cold, live and survive. The earthly elements are not the only things that the Nenets wrestle with: the long arm of the Communist Party also disrupts the calm rhythm of their age-old traditional lifestyle. The Nenets first lose their cattle and finally their children to the Communist system.Seven Songs from the Tundra, the first film made in the language of the Nenets, won various prizes at European film festivals, including the film for the best Nordic film at the Norwegian Film Festival.