Je'vida

Lida is standing around, waiting for her niece in front of a high-rise building. The two have never seen each other. Lida is taciturn and gruff. The deep furrows on her face make it clear that life hasn’t always been easy on her. The niece has inherited a house on a lake from her mother, where the two are going. In the house, the niece opens a box and finds a carefully folded traditional dress that she cannot identify. Lida’s story is told in flashbacks. She used to be called Je’vida. She came from a family of Skolt Sámi and lived with her grandparents on this very lake. As a child, she was a skilled fisherman and loved her people’s festivals. But the Finnish authorities forced her to attend a Christian boarding school and gave her a new name. Bullied by the other kids at school, Lida remained defiant and kept running away. The finely nuanced black-and-white images provide Lida support for her re-encounter with Je’vida and her own roots and history, which were once forcibly ripped away from her.