Homecoming

Thousands of Sámi artefacts are scattered in museums around the globe. The process of returning these objects to their rightful owners is only gradually getting started. Filmmaker Suvi West and cinematographer and co-director Anssi Kömi join forces to discover traces of their ancestors, traveling throughout Europe to find Sámi artefacts in chilly museum basements. Objects such as reindeer boots, head coverings, sacred drums, and even human bones were stolen for “research purposes” and put on display, symptomatic of the centuries of colonization and forced Christianization that the Sámi have suffered. From the need to be able to tell her own story, and to ease the collective pain of her people, Suvi West approaches the past with care, allowing the camera to share her emotions in a very direct way. The film impressively shows how the repatriation of indigenous cultural goods can inextricably be linked to personal and cultural identity.