Katja Gauriloff | |
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 Katja Gauriloff at the Göteborg Film Festival in February 2017 | |
| Born | 6 December 1972 |
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| Years active | 1998–present |
Katja Gauriloff (born 6 December 1972 [1] ) is a Finnish-Skolt filmmaker, director, and one of the owners of the Finnish production company Oktober. [2]
Gauriloff was born in Inari to a Finnish father and a Skolt Sámi mother. Although Gauriloff is of Skolt Sámi heritage on her mother's side, she grew up in Rovaniemi, far away from the main areas the Skolt community lives in around Lake Inari. [3] As she did not grow up in an environment where Skolt Sámi was spoken and it was not spoken at home, she did not learn the language. [4] In spite of this, Gauriloff has developed a strong identity as a Skolt and has explored her heritage through two of her documentaries. In 2016, the cultural association of the Skolts Saaʹmi Nueʹtt and the Skolt village meeting named her Skolt of the Year for her work on Kaisa's Enchanted Forest. [5]
From 2000 to 2004, she studied directing at the Tampere University of Applied Sciences at the School of Art and Media.
Gauriloff began her career in the film industry in 1998.
Two of Gauriloff's documentaries, A Shout into the Wind and Canned Dreams, have been awarded Finnish State Quality Support for cinema productions (Finnish : elokuvataiteen laatutuki). In 2013, Gauriloff and Joonas Berghäll directed the documentary Voimanlähde about four women and their fight against breast cancer for the Pink Ribbon campaign by the Cancer Foundation of Finland (Finnish : Syöpäsäätiö). [6]
A Shout into the Wind was not only Gauriloff's debut film, it was her first film about the Skolt Sámi community. The film documents the struggles of a Skolt family near Sevettijärvi to preserve their traditions in today's world. At first, it was difficult to find funding for the film and it looked like it would not be produced at all. [7] The Finnish Film Foundation and the Promotion Centre For Audiovisual Culture AVEK originally declined requests to fund the movie, but National Geographic gave Gauriloff a seed grant from its All Roads Film Project. [7] [8] The world premiere of A Shout into the Wind was screened at National Geographic's All Roads Film Festival in 2007.
Gauriloff's next documentary, Canned Dreams is a full-length film that follows the making of a can of ravioli through the entire chain of production, concentrating on the individuals contributing to its production. [9] Unusual for this type of documentary, it was even shown in commercial movie theaters in Finland and Denmark. In addition, it was shown at the DocPoint Documentary Movie Festival in Helsinki, Finland and was selected to be shown in the Culinary Cinema programme at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival. [9] [10]
Gauriloff's documentary about the friendship between her great-grandmother Kaisa Taisia Gauriloff, a Skolt Sámi storyteller, and the Swiss writer Robert Crottet premiered at the Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä, Finland in June 2016. [3] [11]
In 2017, it was announced that Gauriloff would be directing her first full-length fiction feature film, the film adaptation of Sofi Oksanen's Baby Jane. [7] [12] The movie premiered on International Women's Day 2019. [13]
Gauriloff and her movies have won numerous awards both at home in Finland and around the world. [1] [14] [15] 2016 saw Gauriloff win multiple awards, mainly for the movie Kaisa's Enchanted Forest, which was the first Sámi film ever to not only be nominated for a Jussi Award (Best Sound Design and Best Documentary), but to also win one, which it did for Best Documentary. [1] [15] In addition to winning a Jussi, Kaisa's Enchanted Forest was awarded a Golden Dove at Dok Leipzig in the International Competition for Animated Documentary. [16] To round out the year, Gauriloff was named the Skolt of the Year by the Skolt Sámi Language and Culture Association Saaʹmi Nueʹtt and the Skolt community council. [1] [5] [14] In 2017, Gauriloff received the Skábmagovat Prize, an indigenous film award to honor the significant, long-term contributions she has made to the Sámi culture and communities. [17] [18] [14] [15] The same year, Kaisa's Enchanted Forest continued to win awards, this time, the Grand Prix at the Northern Character movie festival in Murmansk. [19]
Skolt Sámi is a Uralic, Sámi language that is spoken by the Skolts, with approximately 300 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi and approximately 20–30 speakers of the Njuõʹttjäuʹrr (Notozero) dialect in an area surrounding Lake Lovozero in Russia. In Norway, there are fewer than 15 that can speak Skolt Sámi ; furthermore, the language is largely spoken in the Neiden area. It is written using a modified Roman orthography which was made official in 1973.
The Jussi Awards are Finland's premier film industry prizes, awarded annually to recognize the achievements of directors, actors, and writers.
Nils Gaup is a Sámi film director from Norway.
Tiina Juulia Sanila-Aikio or Skolt Sami: Paavvâl Taannâl Tiina(born 25 March 1983 in Sevettijärvi, Inari, Finland) is a Skolt reindeer herder, musician, teacher, and a former vice-president and president of the Finnish Sámi Parliament.
Sofi-Elina Oksanen is a Finnish writer and playwright. Oksanen has published six novels, of which "Purge" has gained the widest recognition. She has received several international and domestic awards for her literary work. Her work has been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than two million copies. Oksanen has been called "Finnish-Estonian Charles Dickens" and her work has often been compared to Margaret Atwood's novels. Oksanen is actively involved in public debate in Finland and comments on current issues in her columns and various talk shows.
Pirjo Irene Honkasalo is a Finnish film director who has also worked as a cinematographer, film editor, producer, screenwriter and actress. In 1980 she co-directed Flame Top with Pekka Lehto, with whom she worked earlier and later as well. The film was chosen for the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. In the 1990s she focused on feature documentaries such as "The Trilogy of the Sacred and the Satanic". Honkasalo returned to fiction with Fire-Eater (1998) and Concrete Night (2013), both of which were written by Pirkko Saisio. Concrete Night won six Jussi Awards in 2014, among them the Jussi for the Best Direction and the Jussi for the Best Film. Its world premiere was at the Toronto International Film Festival in Masters series.
Inger-Mari Aikio is a Sámi poet who writes in Northern Sámi. In addition to writing poetry, she has worked as a reporter, photographer and proofreader for the newspaper Sámi Áigi from 1982 to 1988, after which she went to work as a news journalist for YLE Sámi Radio.
Lovers & Leavers is a 2002 Finnish romantic drama film directed by Aku Louhimies. The film is written by Katja Kallio and Louhimies, based on Kallio's novel Kuutamolla: Levoton tarina rakastamisesta. Lovers & Leavers is about Iiris, a 30-year-old bookstore assistant, who meets the man of her dreams.
Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers is a Blackfoot and Sámi filmmaker, actor, and producer from the Kainai First Nation in Canada. She has won several accolades for her film work, including multiple Canadian Screen Awards.
The Skolt of the Year Award is an annual award founded in 2007. It is awarded to people, groups, organizations, and institutions individually or collectively in recognition of their outstanding linguistic and cultural contributions for the good of the Skolt community. In spite of its name, it is not a requirement that the recipient be a Skolt. The award is administered and voted on by the Skolt Sámi Language and Culture Association Saaʹmi Nueʹtt and the Skolt community council.
The International Sámi Film Institute (ISFI), is an organization dedicated to providing Sámi people with the skills and economic opportunities in developing, producing, and distributing Sámi films in the Sámi language. It is owned by the Norwegian Sámi Parliament, Norway, and Kautokeino Municipality.
Anastasia Lapsui is a Soviet-born Nenets film director, screenwriter, and radio journalist who has lived in Finland since 1993. Lapsui, together with Markku Lehmuskallio, directed "Seven Songs from the Tundra," the first narrative film in the Nenets language. Lapsui has won numerous honors, including the Jussi Award for Best Film, and the Grand Prize at the Créteil International Women's Film Festival.
Leo Gauriloff was a Skolt Sámi singer, guitarist and composer. He was known mainly for playing acoustic steel string guitars, but he also played other acoustic string instruments, such the sambur, the mandola, the buzuki, as well as synthesizers.
Jaakko Gauriloff is a Skolt Sámi singer. He is regarded as the first artist to have sung popular music in the Skolt Sámi language and is said to be the first Sámi to have published an album in Finland when he published his first record at the end of the 1960s. Although he is mostly known as a schlager singer, he can also sing traditional Skolt Sámi leuʹdds.
Sara Wesslin is a Skolt Saami journalist and news anchor from Finland and a strong advocate of the Skolt Sami language, her grandmother Olga's mother tongue. She took on the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture to secure funding from Finland for the Nordic Resource Centre for the Sami languages.
Unna Junná is a children's television program produced by Finnish public broadcaster Yle Sámi Radio several different Sámi languages. It was the first Sámi-language children's program on Finnish TV and it now airs in Northern, Inari, and Skolt Sámi languages. Since 2007, Unna Junná has aired on Yle and SVT television channels in Finland and Sweden respectively.
Panu Aaltio is a Finnish film composer. He was educated at the Sibelius Academy and University of Southern California and established himself as a film composer with The Home of Dark Butterflies (2008). He has received the International Film Music Critics Association Award for Best Original Score for a Documentary three times, for Tale of a Forest (2012), Tale of a Lake (2016) and Tale of the Sleeping Giants (2021).
Suvi West is a Finnish Sámi director, screenwriter, and television personality.
Jeʹvida is a 2023 Finnish Skolt Sámi–language drama film written and directed by Katja Gauriloff. The film describes the life of a Skolt Sámi woman called Jeʹvida during the period when her people were being forcibly assimilated into Finnish society, while following the life of Jeʹvida in three different periods.
The Skábmagovat Prize is an indigenous film award to honor the significant, long-term contributions the recipient has made to the Sámi culture and communities. The award is announced in conjunction with the Skábmagovat indigenous film festival at the end of January.
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