FI, EE, FR, SE, NO

2018

72 min

In development

Dear Mother

Rahkkis eadni

Directing: Paul Anders Simma

Synopsis

Tasha is a eleven-year-old Lapp girl. She is an inmate of a Russian orphanage, even when she is not an orphan. Tasha believes that her mother is dead and that her father is in jail for life. To survive she has found a Russian stepmother at the orphanage. One day her biological mother suddenly calls her. Tasha is chocked since the authorities had declared her mother dead by a drug overdose several years ago. Her mother claims that she is now drug free. Tasha has mixed feelings for this new found “mother”. She is longing to have a mother of her own, but still she is afraid.

Tasha’s two mothers are both sympathetic and wise women. They are very different in character, but are united by a common goal. Both of them want to do their utmost to enable Tasha to be happy. Her biological mother, Maria, is struggling to get her family back. Tasha’s Russian adoptive mother, Nadia, wants to give her a safe Russian childhood.

At the end of the film, Tasha reaches the most difficult crossroads of her life. She has to make a decision that will have an enormous impact on the rest of her life. Will she become a Sami by choosing to live with her biological mother, or should she become a Russian by choosing a life with the Russian foster mother appointed by the orphanage?

In the background of Tasha’s fate lurks the greater global narrative about the “stolen generations”. Children belonging to different indigenous peoples all over the world were “stolen” and placed in orphanages hoping that they might be assimilated into the majority population. In North America and Australia the “stolen children” constitute a relatively large population group. For years the authorities in the English-speaking former colonies have been devoting a great deal of effort to finding ways to achieve reconciliation. In Europe the “stolen generations” still remain silent.

Trailer

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