Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest

Year of production 2016
Duration 83 min.
Genre Documentary
Director Katja Gauriloff
Cinematography Enrique Mendéz, Heikki Färm F.S.C.
Editing Timo Peltola
Music Timo Peltola
Producers Joonas Berghäll, Satu Majava / OKTOBER

A proud member of Finland’s indigenous Skolt Sámi tribe, filmmaker Katja Gauriloff found a treasure trove of pristine 16mm footage of her grandmother Kaisa, a legendary storyteller and singer of le’udd epic ballads. By sending around postcards all over Europe, Katja recovered these priceless film and voice recordings from the ‘30s-70s, shot by the Swiss writer Robert Crottet, who lived with Kaisa in the ‘30s, and Spanish photographer Enrique Mendez. Their poetic footage and newly created animation depicting the stories creates a poetic, moving portrait of a charismatic woman who stayed strong as WWII forced them to relocate to a part of Finland where they had to give up their reindeer-herding way of life.