TONGUES OF RESISTANCE

Curated by Azem Bekturova

Seitsemän laulua tundralta (Seven Songs from the Tundra)
Anastasia Lapsui, Markku Lehmuskallio, Finland, 2000, 90 min. Nenets, Russian with English subtitles

Seitsemän laulua tundralta (Seven Songs from the Tundra) by Anastasia Lapsui and Markku Lehmuskallio is considered a canonical work of indigenous cinema. In seven episodes, the film traces the life of the Nenets people in the Siberian tundra and depicts the violence with which the Soviet regime intervened in their lives: from forced assimilation and disenfranchisement to forced coexistence with deported Russians.

As the first film in the Nenets language, the work itself is an act of visibility. In combination with the two contemporary short films of the evening, it opens up a space for reflection on the lives of marginalized communities in the post-Soviet space from a decolonial perspective.

Kindly provided by the Finnish Film Foundation. 

Azem Bekturova is a PhD candidate at LMU Munich and an independent curator with a focus on contemporary art and film from Central Asia. She previously collaborated with HKW for Destination: Tashkent (2024) and developed short film programmes for GEGENkino Leipzig and the Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin (2025). She is currently a Sinema plural fellow.