Sami Blood () is a 2016 Swedish coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Amanda Kernell, as her feature film debut. The first 10 minutes of the film (and part of the end) comes directly from the short film (2015, dir. Amanda Kernell). Stoerre Vaerie is Kernell's first film with Sami themes and it was nominated for the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, USA.
The film is set in Sweden in the 1930s and concerns a 14-year-old girl who experiences prejudice at a nomad school for Sami children, and decides to escape her town and disavow her Sami heritage. Parts of the story are inspired by Kernell's own grandmother.
The film premiered at the 73rd edition of the Venice Film Festival in the Venice Days section, in which it was awarded the Europa Cinemas Label Award and the Fedeora Award for Best Debut Director. It won the 2017 Lux Prize and was nominated for the 2017 Nordic Council Film Prize.
Plot
In 2017, 78-year-old Christina comes with her son Olle and granddaughter Sanna to a small town in Swedish Lapland to attend the Sami funeral of her younger sister. Christina, who locals call by her original Sami name, Elle-Marjadoes, does not want to be there. She calls the Sami people thieves and liars, and is disturbed when people speak to her in her first language Southern Sami. She refuses to spend the night at her late sister's family home and would rather check into a hotel. In the evening Christina remembers her childhood and the events that drove her away from her community.
In the 1930s, 14-year-old Elle-Marja's mother is ill. Elle-Marja is sent with her younger sister Njenna to the nomad school, a boarding school for Sami children where a blonde teacher from Småland, Christina Lajler, teaches them Swedish and to know their place. Speaking Sami, even just among themselves outside of the classroom, results in beatings. Elle-Marja is one of the best students, with a perfect score on her exams and striving to perfect her Swedish. Her teacher encourages her interest in reading and gives her a book of poetry by Edith Södergran. Elle-Marja feels alienated from the other Sami children, and her feeling of alienation is intensified when scientists from the Statens institut för rasbiologi (State Institute for Racial Biology) in Uppsala come to the school to measure the children's heads and take photos of them naked, ignoring their questions about what is going on and disregarding their shame about having to undress in the presence of each other, the teacher and the neighbourhood boys who are allowed to watch through the windows.
After threatening a group of these boys with her father's old knife because they called her racist names and slurs, the boys nick the edge of Elle-Marja's ear like the Sami people do with reindeer. She changes out of her gaeptie and takes one of her teacher's dresses from a clothes line.
A group of young soldiers pass her on their way to a dance and Elle-Marja sneaks after them. For a couple of hours she gets to experience how it feels to have the respect of others and be treated with decency by them without question. She dances with a boy called Niklas, who lives in Uppsala, and Elle-Marja makes up her mind that she will leave Sápmi and go south to Uppsala to study. She tells Niklas that her name is Christina, and does not mention her ethnicity. However, her sister, who has told the school secretary about Elle-Marja's sneaking off, arrives with the secretary and Elle-Marja is forcibly removed from the dance and given a spanking with a switch.
Elle-Marja approaches her teacher and asks if she can get a written recommendation to continue her studies in Uppsala. The teacher informs Elle-Marja that she is 'bright' but that the Sami people lack the sort of intelligence needed for higher studies. She claims that the Sami are 'needed' in northern Sweden and supposedly do not adapt well to urban settings. Hearing this, Elle-Marja decides to run away to Uppsala, steals some clothes from a woman on a train, and burns her gaeptie. She invites herself to stay with Niklas' family. After being reluctantly let into the home for a night, Niklas' parents ask Elle-Marja to leave, revealing to their son that they know their guest is Sami. Elle-Marja is then forced to sleep outside in the Botanical Garden.