Screening times:
Friday, March 1, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Saturday, March 2, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Anna Hints | Documentary | Estonia, France, Iceland | 2023 | 89m | Estonian, Seto, Võro with English subtitles
No story too shameful, no burden too heavy to carry when you share it with your sisterhood.
The Vana-Võromaa (a region in South Estonia) smoke sauna tradition known as “savvusanna kombõ” is listed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The ritual is one of connecting family and friends to cleanse body and soul inside a place of peace and contemplation. Conflicts are left outside.
In Filmmaker Anna Hints’ Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, the history of the smoke saunas as a place of giving birth inspired them to focus on women who “come together in the protective darkness of the smoke sauna, share their deepest secrets and wash off the shame that has accumulated in their bodies”.
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is a deeply moving, intimate approach to issues of trauma, healing, and community. The camera is never intrusive, never mechanical. Rather, the images linger, waft, suspended briefly before disappearing and reappearing. With an authentic voice and authority born of their own heritage, filmmaker Anna Hints has created a transformative experience of being human within a female body, showing women as they are with deep empathy.
Anna’s first feature length documentary, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Documentary Competition in January 2023 and received the Directing Award.
Warning: A woman in the film shares her experience of sexual assault.
"Strikes a bold balance between intense intimacy and respectful distance." -Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter
"Most of the film is exquisitely composed of images of body parts, sometimes an arm or breasts, sometimes a row of knees, all illuminated like Old Master paintings to allow us to appreciate the quiet intimacy and profound beauty of human bodies." -Nell Minow, RogerEbert.com
"The film transmits an immediate and powerful experience of profound communion between people bound by shared hardship." -Carson Lund, Slant Magazine
World Cinema Documentary - Directing Award - Sundance Film Festival
Best Documentary - European Film Awards
Best Documentary Feature - San Francisco International Film Festival
Best Cinematography - IDA Documentary Awards
Tickets $8.75 ($8 cash at the door if available).
Half capacity
SOLD OUT
