They seek community by sweating both body and soul. Sweat drips from their temples, a haze permeates the air of the sauna, one story follows another… Women share intimate experiences like confessions ranging from their relationship with their bodies and sexuality and bringing children into the world to everything that is unfaltering, undisclosed and timelessly beautiful. Only the naked truth. These few square metres provide a safe haven that separates them from the outside world, while warming them in the hushed intimacy and joy of togetherness. One puts a hand on another’s shoulder: we’re all going through this together.

This lyrical southern Estonian female prayer, which won the Documentary Directing Award at Sundance, was inspired by an experience the director had at the age of 11, when her grandmother revealed her grandfather’s infidelity in a sauna. In this simultaneously laconic and narratively rich debut feature, Estonian director Anna Hints chooses to barely show the women’s faces, framing individual body parts in a painterly light – one could say that the characters’ silhouettes are like baroque masterpieces or living sculptures on sauna benches. The director suggests that women’s fates can be “healed” in the safety of the sauna – fates which are otherwise determined by societal expectations and stereotypes, shame, and various forms of violence. In the centre of it all lies their unshakeable willpower. A documentary ritual on the screen that will become a therapeutic and cathartic experience for the viewer.

Jury statement: This film is the hottest “Kammerspiel” ever. In a restricted room, we find a multi-bodied woman that literally sweats out all her topics, fears, and traumatic experiences.