Kumu Documentary: Homecoming / Máhccan
Dir Suvi West, Anssi Kömi
Finland and Norway 2023, 76 min
In Finnish and Sami, with English subtitles
The film will be introduced by the promoter of the Finno-Ugric kindred people’s movement Jaak Prozes and the Fenno-Ugria project manager Janno Zõbin
As museums worldwide are increasingly pressured to return cultural property, the co-directors, Suvi West and Anssi Kömi, share a personal and insightful story about the return of Sámi artefacts ‒ long held in a museum ‒ to their homeland.
The camera follows West as she visits Sámi artefacts housed in a Helsinki museum as they are prepared for their long-awaited return to Sápmi, the Sámi nation in northern Scandinavia and northwestern Russia. Keen to discover if any of her ancestors’ belongings are among the collection, West carries us through the remarkably intricate and emotional process of the repatriation of indigenous cultural and spiritual property to their homelands.
