Nils Gaup

During summer 1979, Ester moves to Alta in Northern Norway to begin teaching at an elementary school. Like many Sámi at the time, she is ashamed of her heritage and conceals her ethnicity. Ester goes to great lengths to fit in, even joining in with the derogatory jokes. When her cousin Mikkhal takes her to a camp by the Alta River, where people are demonstrating against the building of a dam, Ester learns how the fight for the river is also a revolt against the years of brutal racism and discrimination against her people. After a major confrontation with the police, Mikkhal and some other Sámi decide to go to Oslo to hunger strike in front of the Parliament. Knowing what is at stake, Ester realises it is time to make a stand…

The Sámi people (also spelled Sami or Saami) are an indigenous Finno-Ugric people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway and Sweden, northern parts of Finland, and the Kola Peninsula within the Murmansk Oblast of Russia. A single daily newspaper is published in Northern Sámi, Ávvir. There are short daily news bulletins in Northern Sámi on national TV in Norway, Sweden and Finland. There is a Sámi theatre, Beaivvas, in Kautokeino on the Norwegian side, as well as in Kiruna on the Swedish side. The largest Sami Publishing house is Davvi Girji. In this program "Topic: Sámi" filmmaker Nils Gaup presents his latest production, "The Kautokeino Rebellion" (2008), author Ann-Helen Laestadius talks about to seek ones roots, and Isabel Pavval share how it is being a young Sámi and youth culture.

Outer Senja in 1877. A young girl is found apparently lifeless among flotsam and seaweed. The storm has washed her ashore. Miraculously, they revive her, but she has lost her memory, and no one knows who she is or where she comes from. They call her "Båremor" or "The Girl from the Sea." A fisherman and his wife take care of her, and it gradually becomes clear that she has extraordinary abilities. Among other things, she plays the organ beautifully. The girl feels like a stranger among the weather-beaten coastal people, and she is driven to track down her original home. During her escape, she hides in the boat of the wandering vagabond Borr, a notorious and wanted daredevil. On the run from the sheriff and the priest, they try to find their way back to her birthplace.

A conflict between the Norwegian military and the civilian population during the cold war. A disagreement arises about the right to a military shooting field.

Young Finn Olaf arrives at the Mo i Rana steelworks and, while befriending crane operator Trond and his wife Margot, embarks on a secret affair with Margot that shatters Trond’s stable existence.