SAMI BLOOD

Reluctantly returning home for her sister’s funeral, an elderly woman is forced to face the people and culture she spent her life denying and fleeing. She is a Sami, an indigenous people of Sweden who live by herding reindeer. They were once oppressed and deemed racially inferior, unworthy of education or protection. SAMI BLOOD is the story of her life, a familiar telling placed in a new and fascinating context. When she and her sister are shipped off to a draconian boarding school, the realities of how their culture and people are regarded become painfully clear. This fearlessly honest film depicts the racial discrimination and measurements they are subjected to, as well as the decision they are forced to make: accept their heritage with pride and defiance and remain outcast or deny the very core of who they are in order to escape and craft a future of their own. SAMI BLOOD is a brave and beautiful journey that will stir the viewer on the deepest levels. (In Swedish and Sami with subtitles) —C.R.