A slice of life from a little under a hundred years ago that illustrates that which is timeless, humble, and uncomfortable. A quiet cycle of the fusion of man and nature, where everything takes place as in a living painting. We meet Sámi woman Inka Länta and those close to her, who cross the snowy forests day after day, hunting reindeer and warming themselves in a goahte (a Sámi hut or tent). The arrival of Laestadian pastor August is a symbol of Swedish culture and its different world view. If nature and snow, which has three hundred names in the Sami language, previously protected Inka, now the newcomer is melting her refuge.

One of the first films in Swedish film history about the Sámi people, the indigenous people of Fennoscandia, who have experienced decades of systematic discrimination and persecution. Erik Bergström’s unique work was created as a piece of ethnographic fiction, blending documentary and narrative cinema under authentic conditions – it is made in the same vein as Robert Flaherty’s canonical work of documentary fiction, Nanook of the North (1922). The silent film ignores the ethnicity politics of the time, while portraying the pastor as a humanitarian benefactor, creating an artificial image of the relationship between the Sámi and Swedes at the time. The film was restored in 2021 by the Swedish Film Institute, using a nitrate print and restoring the original colour palette of the film stock. It is accompanied by a new score by Lotta Hasselquist Nilsson.