Sami Blood - Official Trailer

A breakout critical discovery of the 2016 Venice International Film Festival, Swedish-Sami filmmaker Amanda Kernell’s striking directorial debut is a female coming-of-age story told with emotional power.

During the 1930s in Sweden, indigenous Sami children were systematically removed from their parents (a practice common in Scandinavia over the nineteenth and twentieth century). Reindeer-herding teenager Elle-Marja (Lene Cecilia Sparrok) is one of these children, sent to a boarding school where indigenous students are taught Swedish language and customs, and made ‘acceptable’ to white society. During her stay, Elle-Marja is torn between assimilating and her burgeoning sense of self...

Beautifully articulating adolescent anxiety and the impact of one culture seeking to deny another, Kernell’s hyper-specific setting uncovers an engrossing, universal story, one particularly familiar within the context of Australian history. #SamiBlood

[toxicperson]

I was born & raised in the USA (nyc & New Jersey specifically) but my entire family is from Sweden. My parents moved here from Sweden 2 years before I was born & we spoke Swedish at home. A few years after that, my grandma also moved from Sweden & started living with us. She actually did some modeling in Sweden, from the early to late ‘60s. I have an old Swedish magazine from November 1962, when she was 23 I believe, & she is actually posing topless in that magazine lol. Reason I’m mentioning this is to just show that for the most part, she was very progressive for back then, especially from her generation. She passed away a few years ago, in 2017 when she was 78. (For context, I’m 27 now, & was 22 when she passed away.)
But my grandma was one of the nicest people you could ever meet, & she also wasn’t racist towards black Americans, Asians, or any other race of people you would see in America, which unfortunately is/was very rare for people her age. She also supported gay people (myself included, im a gay man) WAYYY before that was the norm. Even in the late ‘90s, she was pro gay rights & even went to a gay marriage ceremony for her friend before it was level.
HOWEVER.. if you would of heard her talk about Sami people, she would come off as an extremely hateful person. Growing up in America I never met a Sami person until I was an adult visiting Sweden, but as a kid I remember thinking that they must really be a terrible group of people if my grandma, who doesn’t hate anyone else, really hates them. She would say they were dirty & would barely bathed, lazy people who didn’t want to work & just want things given to them, etc. She wasn’t even from northern Sweden, she spent most of her life in Göteborg (or Gothenburg) so she couldn’t have spent much time with them. I asked her when I was older & she even admitted that she never really spent any time with them, she just spent her entire childhood/life hearing people talk badly about them, however she still believed they were a bad group of people up until the day she died.

Point of me saying all this, for so long, literally hundreds of years if not longer, the entire country of Sweden, as well as Norway, & I assume Finland & Russia as well, were all taught to hate these people, who just wanted to keep to themselves & do their own thing, for no good reason.

So yes, prejudice against Sami people from the Swedish & Norwegian populations were a very real thing. I see many people thinking it wasn’t, because some Sami’s look so similar to Scandinavians. From what I understand & from what I’ve heard, as someone who didn’t grow up there but has always heard about them from my family who are were raised there, the prejudice against them was more about the difference in cultures, not about the physical differences.

[Skelldr]

If you’re hating on this movie because you’re confused about skin color, then you don’t know what racism truly is.

[richardzhou]

I suggest some people in the comments, if you're not purposefully being racist or troll, come to Lapland yourself someday, see the indigenous people here, experience their culture in a guided tour and listen these people tell you about firsthand history about Scandinavian colonization in Lapland, as well as challenges they've been facing to even this day.

[MadOrse]

I think our Swedish education system did us a great disservice by not lifting this up more in history.

[esaykamusic]

I’ve just started learning about Sami history. It’s fascinating but also extremely sad. Its history is a true reflection of how horrible the world is and how it views spiritual belief systems and traditions. What’s even more of a shame is that in the U.K we’d never even been taught that Sami people existed and if it hadn’t have been for me discovering their beautiful music then I’d probably never have discovered them. My thoughts go to all the people who have lived through the injustices and I commend the strength of you all. 🤍

[AmaliaGranath]

Dont listen to some people here!
The Sami are one of the world's indigenous peoples, one of several thousand indigenous peoples around the world. Common to indigenous peoples (or indigenous peoples) is that they lived in the same place throughout history before the countries were invaded or colonized. They have their own culture, their own language and their own customs that differ from society around. The Sami lived in Scandinavia long before national borders were drawn up.

[katjaisaksen]

This looks like a great movie, but the comment about white society isn't quite right. It's about ethnicity, not skin colour. Subtle difference and exactly the same in practice but still. Sami people are as fair skinned as any other Scandinavians. But they have a different ancestry, language and culture than mainstream Scandinavian society and this caused them to be persecuted. There are stories about people who assimilated so well that their children and grandchildren had no idea they were Sami until recently. I would definitely like to see this movie.

[erikc]

My grandmother was Sami … PROUD to have Sami blood in my veins!

[alvegutt]

its sad, many people dont know if they're sami or how much. my great grandmother knew she was sami, and my entire mothers family is from that area, so I'm estimating I'm between 40-12% sami

[lenalee]

Beautiful film. Identity is woven into every scene

[ThatBigFail]

A lot of closet-racists in the comment talking about how bad the movie is, because "racism against Sami people are non-existing and never has existed".

[UlvNord]

I'm American with Celtic/Norwegian on my dads side and Sàmi/Russian on my moms. I may have been born in American but my bloodline matters a lot to me. Growing up alone and distant parents, i feel like i can relate and I'd like to see this movie!

[vivecamotsieloa]

I miss my sami friend wo brought me into their 'sphere'. As a black person in Sweden you just feel at home when you are surrounded by Sami who acknowledge and feel proud of their culture and heritage.

[roneb]

It's amazing to me to read these comments and realize just how pervasive racism and prejudice is in Northern Eurpoe to this day. A lot of people posting are clinging to outdated research that was incredibly bias and has been thoroughly disproven by modern genome testing and modern linguistic study (Looking at you Rob Gorman). The Sami language is nowhere close to being Mongolian. The Mongolian language is actually more closely related to Korean and Japanese. And modern DNA studies disprove the Sami Mongloid connection. To those posting research that Scandanivians are the earliest Europeans, learn to read. The research demonstrates that the Germanic Scandinavian population shows the genetic markers of being the earliest Europeans and maintained them as a fairly homogenous group. It does not mean that locationally they suddenly sprouted up in what is modern day Scandinavia before anyone else. It merely means their genetics most closely matches the markers we have for what science considers "European". Yes they may havearrived in southern Sweden before the Sami arrive in the north, but it is wiely accepted that the Sami were the original cultural population in northern Scandinvia.

In any case, none of these arguments are particularly important, as the movie appears to be about the prejudice and racism faced by the Sami people in a historical context, which is a fact and not open for debate. Whether you want to say they were indigenous or not, it can NOT be argued that they weren't persecuted.

[facelesscaseless]

I found out my great grandparents where finnish sámi that fled to the states so I'm trunna learn as much as I can about my heritage

[BluemoonAG]

suddenly everyone is an historian and scientist in these comments...

[jjhofstra]

A VERY special quality. All of the acting was great, but i have to say, that, although the lead
actress was flawless, the girl who played her younger sister was a Scene-Stealer!!

[tma]

i watched a short documentary on sami students who travelled and lived in a northern part of russia to study, then had to go back to live in the villages they came from. most of the students weren't looking forward to it. was a good documentary. i didnt even know about sami people until i watched a vid here on yt about native people olympic games they had held in the u.s. hosted by american indians. they had all the native peoples then the sami came up and i had to pause it to google them. pretty cool, i never knew of them prior to seeing that.

[Federation]

Saami 😍😍😍😍😍 Don't touch them! Love them!

[duanestenquist]

I'm 9% Sami. Proud of my heritage.