Let The River Flow

Let The River Flow - a film by Ole Giæver
Let The River Flow - a film by Ole Giæver
Let The River Flow - a film by Ole Giæver
NOW AVAILABLE TO OWN OR VIEW ON DEMAND
Let The River Flow - a film by Ole Giæver
Lively and empathetic. Powerful in cause and historical depiction. Exposing "Norwegianisation" can be a tricky thing to bring up in the discourse of your own country, but the responses to the film are telling. As the film warns us, the fights of the Sámi do not go unrecognised, but they are far from over.
Director: Ole Giæver
Cast: Ella Marie Haetta Isaksen, Gard Emil, Sofia Jannok, Beaska Niillas, Marie Kvernmo
Duration: 124mins
Country of Origin: Norway
M
A suicide scene and infrequent coarse language
Lively and empathetic. Powerful in cause and historical depiction. Exposing "Norwegianisation" can be a tricky thing to bring up in the discourse of your own country, but the responses to the film are telling. As the film warns us, the fights of the Sámi do not go unrecognised, but they are far from over.

WINNER (x3!) - 2023 NORWEGIAN ACADEMY AWARDS - Best Film, Director, Supp. Actor (Emil)
WINNER - 2023 GÖTEBORG FILM FESTIVAL - Audience Award
WINNER - 2023 TROMSØ INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - Audience Award OPENING NIGHT SELECTION - 2023 SCANDINAVIAN FILM FESTIVAL

Based on true events that inspired a generation of young Norwegians, writer/director Ole Giæver’s elegant, multi award-winning historical drama follows a young woman who is unintentionally drawn into a protest against a dam that may flood Indigenous Sámi land.

Summer 1979. Recently graduated, 23-year-old schoolteacher Ester (magnetic newcomer Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen) has moved to the northern Norwegian town of Alta to begin her career. Like many Sámi – the native people of Scandinavia – Ester is ashamed of her heritage and conceals her ethnicity in order to blend in, to the great consternation of her mother. Yet where she wears this integration uneasily, her cousin Mihkkal (Gard Emil) openly embraces his roots, and it’s he who takes Ester to see a camp by the river where a group is demonstrating against the government’s plan to build a hydroelectricity plant. Slowly understanding that the conflict is about far more than environmental concerns - her very identity and culture is under challenge – Ester is stirred to act, placing herself and her loved ones at considerable risk…

Forty years on from the real Alta dam protest, LET THE RIVER FLOW powerfully conveys the outrage that helped expose Norway's dark history of oppression over its indigenous people as part of its “Norwegianisation” assimilation policy, a turning point in the fight for Sámi rights. Movingly articulating the colonial impact of one culture seeking to deny another and only too resonant within the context of Australia’s (ongoing) history, Giæver’s gripping film is a moving story of pride and finding one’s voice.

Let The River Flow - a film by Ole Giæver
NOW AVAILABLE TO OWN OR VIEW ON DEMAND