Scandinavia House

NO OTHER LAND
2025-01-06 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On January 6, see No Other Land, a Norwegian-produced, vérité-style documentary by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four directors.
Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community’s mass expulsion by Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta as soldiers destroy the homes of families — the largest single act of forced transfer carried out in the occupied West Bank. After he crosses paths with Yuval Abraham, a young Israeli journalist, the two spend half a decade fighting the expulsion. Their complex bond is haunted by the extreme inequality between them: Basel lives under a brutal military occupation, and Yuval is unrestricted and free. Created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, No Other Land was filmed by Basel and Yuval alongside two fellow activists — Isareli Rachel Szor and Palestinian Hamdan Ballal. The film is an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice. (Norway & Palestine, 2024).
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FOUR OSCAR-SHORTLISTED SHORTS
2025-01-07 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On January 7, see a special screening of four Oscar-eligible short films, presented by The New Yorker! The program will feature “I’m Not a Robot,” a eligible for Best Live-Action Short, as well as the Best Documentary Short-shortlisted films “Eternal Father,” “Incident,” and “Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr.” Filmmakers will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A and reception.
I’m Not a Robot | Directed by Victoria Warmerdam
After repeatedly failing CAPTCHA tests, a music producer named Lara becomes obsessed with a disturbing question: Could she be a robot?
Eternal Father | Directed by Ömer Sami
After starting a family late in life, Nasar fears he won’t live to see his kids grow up. He decides to be cryonically frozen after death, hoping they can someday reunite. His family’s dilemma: follow suit or be left behind? As the future eclipses the present, Nasar must reassess what truly matters.
Incident | Directed by Bill Morrison
Through a montage of surveillance and police body-camera footage, a reconstruction of a deadly shooting by a Chicago police officer becomes an investigation into how a narrative begins to take shape in the aftermath.
Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr | Directed by Kimberly Reed
After Zooey Zephyr’s expulsion from the Montana House of Representatives for defending transgender medical care, she claims a nearby bench as her “office.” Director Kimberly Reed’s intimate documentary turns this shocking political moment into a nuanced portrait of trans and queer joy.
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GALLERY TOUR | NORDIC UTOPIA?
2025-01-08 17:30 - 18:05, 2025-01-22 17:30 - 18:05, 2025-02-05 17:30 - 18:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On view from November 26, 2024 to March 9, 2025 at Scandinavia House, Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century looks at the significance of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden as destinations for African American cultural figures including Ronald Burns, Doug Crutchfield, Herb Gentry, Dexter Gordon, William Henry Johnson, Howard Smith and Walter Williams through a range of artifacts, artworks (music, paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles), and documentary evidence (photography, film, and journalistic writing). In this guided tour by Emily Stoddart, ASF’s Manager of Exhibitions & Community Programs, learn about the artists in this exhibition and their works.
These free, 35-minute public tours meet in the Gallery elevator lobby. Gallery tours are subject to change; please check with the Scandinavia House front desk or email info@amscan.org.
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A WOMAN LOOKS OVER HER SHOULDER
2025-01-09 19:00 - 20:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On January 9, join us for a book talk with Icelandic author Brynja Hjálmsdóttir and ASF Translation Prizewinner Rachel Britton for a discussion on A Woman Looks Over Her Shoulder, out now from Circumference Press!
In A Woman Looks Over Her Shoulder, one woman lives in a glass ball that is being shaken by someone else. This book of poems, however, is always shaking itself up, leaping between the extreme and the daily, the gross and the delicious, between being scared and being scary. These surreal, visceral, and somehow polite poems explore what it can be like to be a woman and to slither through and away from threat to find voice and form and power, no matter how strange. The apocalyptic utopia we arrive at in this book—The Whore’s City—is a perfect model to move to in one’s head: feminist, funny, odd, and a little disgusting, all towards transformation.
“A sly, refreshing, and vivid book” (Emily Hunt)
“A strange and compelling book which relentlessly pokes at and pokes fun at the I/thou dynamic of Women and Men in our culture” (Matthew Rohrer)
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ARMAND
2025-01-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On January 9, see a special screening of Armand (Norway, 2024), Norway’s official selection for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards!
Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve) arrives at a parent-teacher meeting called on short notice. Her six-year-old son Armand has been accused of something — but that “something” seems unclear. As the principal, the school nurse, and another pair of parents become involved, it’s revealed that a boundary has been crossed between Armand and his best friend. And as they disagree on how to handle it, the school begins to lose control. A powerful and thought-provoking drama about the complexities of alleged sexual harassment between children, Armand has been acclaimed as a “vivid, creepy, and uncomfortably funny debut” (IndieWire).
“Resonant and haunting — and should spark plenty of post-screening discussions” (Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily)

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NORDIC NOW! NEW NORDIC FOLK
2025-01-10 15:00 - 18:00, 2025-01-11 15:00 - 18:00 | NY
On January 10-11, join us for NORDIC NOW!, a two-day program of new Nordic folk music! The program will include three acts — FRÄNDER, Teho. and Päivi Hirvonen Trio — whose music pushes the boundaries of the Nordic folk genre, incorporating modern twists and elements of world music. All acts will perform on both days from 3-6 PM.
FRÄNDER blends Swedish and Estonian folk traditions with a modern twist and a “heavy folk” style, performing evocative melodies and unique sounds on traditional acoustic instruments. Their latest album, FRÄNDER II, has boundaries of folk music and wowed audiences worldwide, from Scandinavia to Japan to Canada to the U.S.
Finnish power-fiddle duo Teho. combines Nordic fiddling styles, jazzy influences and composed, contemporary folk music with a touch of Finnish madness. Artists Tero Hyväluoma and Esko Järvelä have played together for years in various different projects, including in the well-known Finnish folk band Frigg. Their debut album was nominated for an Emma Award (a Finnish Grammy).
Päivi Hirvonen is one of Finland’s emerging international folk music artists and a pioneer in simultaneous violin playing and singing. The themes of her songs range from childlessness and polyamory, to sorrow and love, blending diverse roots of folk music and pop culture influences with a touch of gothic mystique. Her live ensemble features Tero Pajunen and Mirva Ormin, and her third album is set to be released this spring.
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NEW SWEDISH POETRY
2025-01-14 14:00 - 15:00 | NY
Join us on January 14 for a virtual book talk on Katarina Frostenson’s The Space of Time (Songs and Formulae), (Threadsuns Press, October 2024) and Ann Jäderlund’s Lonespeech (Nightboat Books, May 2024). Frostenson’s translator Brad Harmon and Jäderlund’s translator Johannes Göransson will be joined by moderator Robin Myers for readings and discussions.
Winner of the 2016 Nordic Council Literature Prize, The Space of Time is an unsentimental and smoldering study of the ecological and utopic function of grief. Frostenson seems to speak to the universal orphan lost in the Open, in the landscape, in literature, in bedwarmth, and in lamentation.
In Lonespeech, Ann Jäderlund rewires the correspondence between writers Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan into a series of stark, runic poems about the fraught act of communication and its failures. Forsaking her reputation as a baroque poet, Jäderlund uses simple words and phrases in favor of an almost childlike simplicity, giving her poems, on first glance, the appearance of parables: mountains, sunlight, rivers, aortas. Upon closer inspection, the poems glitch, bend, and torque into something else, enigmatic and forceful, lending them, as Jäderlund says, the force of “clear velocity.”
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YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS | NORDIC BOOK CLUB ONLINE
2025-01-14 18:00 - 19:00 | NY
Read and discuss literature with our Nordic Book Club Online! On January 14, we’ll be discussing award-winning Icelandic novelist Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s Your Absence Is Darkness, a spellbinding saga about the inhabitants of a rural community on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, out now in translation by Philip Roughton.
A man comes to awareness in a cold church in the Icelandic countryside, not knowing who he is, why he’s there or how he arrived, with a stranger staring mockingly from a few pews back. Startled by the man’s cryptic questions, he leaves—and plunges into a history spanning centuries. A city girl is drawn to the fjords by the memory of a blue-eyed gaze, and a generation earlier, a farmer’s wife writes an essay about earthworms that changes the course of lives. A pastor who writes letters to dead poets falls in love with a faraway stranger, and a rock musician, plagued by cosmic loneliness, discovers that his past has been a lie. Faced with the violence of fate and the effects of choices, each discovers the cost of following the magnetic needle of the heart.
Incandescent and elemental, hope-filled and humane, Your Absence Is Darkness is a comedy about mortality, music, and the strange salve of time.
“Comparisons do not do justice to the complexity of Stefánsson’s book, nor the uniqueness of his prose, rendered here in a tumblingly beautiful translation by Philip Roughton” (Daniel Mason, New York Times).
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FANTASTICAL FORM | ADULT ART WORKSHOP
2025-01-16 18:00 - 20:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us at Scandinavia House for a beginner-friendly adult art workshop! Inspired by the work of Scandinavian artists like Eva Hild and late ceramicist Ragnar Kjartansson (1923-89), participants will create an abstract clay sculpture imbued with natural and organic forms. Guided by teaching artist Korka, participants will create art in a relaxed atmosphere. All materials are provided.
Participants who have respiratory issues are encouraged to wear masks. Participation is limited to 12 attendees; please register in advance to guarantee attendance.
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SWEDISH 1.2 — ENROLLMENT OPEN
2025-01-19 18:00 - 19:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered at Scandinavia House, held in-person and virtually! This course builds upon Swedish 1.1 or its equivalent. Students will learn sentence structure in sentences with more than one verb, placement of adverbs, plural endings, conjugation of adjectives, objective and possessive pronouns, and the past tense. Various cultural aspects will also be highlighted during the course. This class will take place as hybrid learning, with classes offered at Scandinavia House and online via Zoom.
This hybrid class will be held both in-person and via Zoom; in-person attendance for the first four classes is highly recommended. Classes take place on Mondays from 6:00–7:30 PM beginning January 19 through June 15.
At the end of the semester students will know:
• How to structure sentences with more than one verb
• The conjugation of adjectives
• The past tense
And be able to:
• Talk about themselves and what they do in their day
*Please note that there will be no classes on the following dates:
February 16 (Presidents’ Day); March 30, April 6, and April 13 (Spring Break); May 11 (Mother’s Day Weekend); May 25 (Memorial Day); and June 8.*
Prerequisite: Swedish 1.1 or equivalent; instructions for remote learning will be emailed upon registration. For questions about language levels, please contact Ingrid Kullberg-Bendz. Tuition is $675 ($607.50 ASF Members); 22.5 hours total class time.
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FRANZ SCHUBERT: THE SOULFUL AND THE SUBLIME
2025-02-04 19:30 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Internationally acclaimed pianist Jeffrey Siegel returns this fall for his ever-popular Keyboard Conversations® series at Scandinavia House. Each evening comprises an informal commentary on the music and its composers, a full performance of each work, and a short Q & A session. The engaging format both makes friends of classical music and enriches the listening experience for avid music lovers.
Tonight’s program will consist of the zesty “Marche Millitaire,” the celestial Impromptus, and the dashing Sonata in A (D. 664)!

Thanks to a generous loan by Victor Borge’s grandson Finn, concerts will be performed on Victor Borge’s personal Steinway piano.
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THE 2025 SÁMI FILM FESTIVAL
2025-02-06 18:30 - 21:00, 2025-02-08 13:00 - 17:00 | NY
The Annual Sámi Film Festival returns to Scandinavia House and virtually nationwide! Now in its 7th year, the festival celebrates the rich storytelling traditions of the Sámi, an Indigenous people of the northernmost parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. This year’s program is curated by acclaimed visual artist Matti Aikio, whose work in sound and video art has captivated audiences across the globe, and one of 12 artists featured in Arctic Highways, a 2023 exhibition exploring contemporary art by Indigenous artists from the Arctic. Presented annually in partnership with the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, this year’s festival will also be co-presented with Anchorage Museum, a significant art, history, ethnography, ecology, and science museum dedicated to studying and exploring the land, peoples, art, and history of Alaska.
The program will combine short films and feature films from different eras. New experimental films, which defy categorization in genres and resemble video art, will be paired with canonical films like Markku Lehmuskallio’s Skierri from 1982. In-person screenings will take place on Thursday, February 6 & Saturday, February 8 at Scandinavia House, and virtual screenings will be available nationwide from February 7 through 13. Other opening weekend in-person screenings will take place at the Majestic Bay Theatres in Seattle and at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska.
“The Sámi Film Festival exemplifies the National Nordic Museum’s commitment to honoring the history and culture of region’s Indigenous people, the threats they face, and their contemporary resilience.” Lāth Carlson, CEO of the National Nordic Museum. “We are very pleased to have the Anchorage Museum join the festival this year to increase the visibility of these important films.”
SCHEDULE
DAY ONE
THU—February 6—6:30 PM; $13 ($8 ASF Members)
Biegga bieggá /Wind is Winding (2024)
Dir. Jenni Laiti & Lada Suomenrinne | 42 min.
They swallow our rivers, and the valleys turn into one big tear of grief. Yet, there are beings who gather the grief for a journey, for what they are carrying the wounded trees and all living beings. Their luggage is full of legacy from the world that is ending, and they will find the path to a portal when the first snow of the winter falls. The wind blows and leads the voyagers to a utopia, challenging them with the questions of being.
Skierri – vaivaiskoivujen maa /Skierri – Land of the Dwarf Birches (1982)
Dir. Markku Lehmuskallio | 118 min.
In Sápmi, a reindeer herder follows the traditional cycles of migratory life, which keep him apart from his home and wife for long periods of time. “Two cultures collide, the minority culture and the majority one. We try to show another way of thinking in this world,” said director Markku Lehmuskallio. The director spent a year working with reindeer herders before filming to better understand the Sámi way of life. Skierri was the first Finnish feature film in which the Sámi people speak their language. The music of Erik Satie is combined with the sounds of nature.
DAY TWO
SAT—February 8—1 PM; $13 ($8 ASF Members)
Dajan — I say (2024)
Dir. Alice Márja Jektevik, Kim Saarinen | 4 min.
A music video consisting of two songs by Hildá Länsman & Tuomas Norvios, “Gulan” and “Dajan,” Dajan — I Say mirrors artist and yoiker Länsman’s personal journey in finding her way back home to Sápmi, and discovering the strength to say no to things she does not want for herself. Produced in the border areas on the Finnish and Norwegian side of Sápmi, around Länsman’s home village Ohcejohka, the film’s title comes from the northern Saami word “Dajan,” which directly translates to “I say.” The song invites you to move freely in the world to the beat of your own decisions.
Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 2 — On Nomadism and Flow (2022) and Part 5 — On the Gumpi (2022)
Dir. Joar Nango & Ken Are Bongo | 37 min. (Part 2) and 40 min. (Part 5)
As a prologue to his 2020 exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall, Joar Nango made three films, together with Sámi filmmaker Ken Are Bongo, that explore Sámi architecture in a TV show format. The series was produced by Bergen Kunsthall as part of the official festival program for the Bergen International Festival in May 2020, which could not be held in a physical form due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The series was filmed with a mobile TV studio during travels through the northern landscape, meeting guests for interviews and visiting key architectural sites.
Maiílmmittkus (2024)
Dir. Hans Pieski & Arttu Nieminen | 8 min.
Modern technology is often seen as a downfall of sustainable ways of living on the land, but according to many historians the Sámi have themselves, at least partly, embraced and welcomed the technical revolution in the past. What is modern technology’s relationship to the Sámi culture? Is breaking away from technology possible anymore? In this surreal journey into their complex relationship, various stages of technological development are depicted alongside their impact on Indigenous populations.
Sámi Bojá (2015)
Dir. Elle Sofe Henriksen | 9 min.
Sámi Bojá is about Mikkel, a reindeer herder who has the entire responsibility for his family’s herd. He has a tough shell like a Sámi bojá should have, but internally, there is chaos.
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OPENING NIGHT | THE 2025 SÁMI FILM FESTIVAL
2025-02-06 18:30 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
The Annual Sámi Film Festival returns to Scandinavia House and virtually nationwide! Now in its 7th year, the festival celebrates the rich storytelling traditions of the Sámi, an Indigenous people of the northernmost parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. This year’s program is curated by acclaimed visual artist Matti Aikio, whose work in sound and video art has captivated audiences across the globe, and one of 12 artists featured in Arctic Highways, a 2023 exhibition exploring contemporary art by Indigenous artists from the Arctic. Presented annually in partnership with the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, this year’s festival will also be co-presented with Anchorage Museum, a significant art, history, ethnography, ecology, and science museum dedicated to studying and exploring the land, peoples, art, and history of Alaska.
Opening night screenings will be followed by a film talk with festival curator Matti Aikio.
SCHEDULE
Biegga bieggá /Wind is Winding (2024)
Dir. Jenni Laiti & Lada Suomenrinne | 42 min.
They swallow our rivers, and the valleys turn into one big tear of grief. Yet, there are beings who gather the grief for a journey, for what they are carrying the wounded trees and all living beings. Their luggage is full of legacy from the world that is ending, and they will find the path to a portal when the first snow of the winter falls. The wind blows and leads the voyagers to a utopia, challenging them with the questions of being.
Skierri – vaivaiskoivujen maa /Skierri – Land of the Dwarf Birches (1982)
Dir. Markku Lehmuskallio | 118 min.
In Sápmi, a reindeer herder follows the traditional cycles of migratory life, which keep him apart from his home and wife for long periods of time. “Two cultures collide, the minority culture and the majority one. We try to show another way of thinking in this world,” said director Markku Lehmuskallio. The director spent a year working with reindeer herders before filming to better understand the Sámi way of life. Skierri was the first Finnish feature film in which the Sámi people speak their language. The music of Erik Satie is combined with the sounds of nature.
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VIRTUAL SCREENINGS | THE 2025 SÁMI FILM FESTIVAL
2025-02-07, 2025-02-08, 2025-02-09, 2025-02-10, 2025-02-11, 2025-02-12, 2025-02-13 | NY
The Annual Sámi Film Festival returns to Scandinavia House and virtually nationwide! Now in its 7th year, the festival celebrates the rich storytelling traditions of the Sámi, an Indigenous people of the northernmost parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. This year’s program is curated by acclaimed visual artist Matti Aikio, whose work in sound and video art has captivated audiences across the globe, and one of 12 artists featured in Arctic Highways, a 2023 exhibition exploring contemporary art by Indigenous artists from the Arctic.
All films in the lineup will screen in-person on February 6 & 8 and virtually from February 7 through 13. The program combines short films and feature films from different eras, pairing canonical films such as Markku Lehmuskallio’s Skierri with new experimental films, which defy categorization in genres and resemble video art. Presented annually in partnership with the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, this year’s festival will also be co-presented with Anchorage Museum, a significant art, history, ethnography, ecology, and science museum dedicated to studying and exploring the land, peoples, art, and history of Alaska.
PROGRAM
Dajan — I say (2024)
Dir. Alice Márja Jektevik, Kim Saarinen | 4 min.
A music video consisting of two songs by Hildá Länsman & Tuomas Norvios, “Gulan” and “Dajan,” Dajan — I Say mirrors artist and yoiker Länsman’s personal journey in finding her way back home to Sápmi, and discovering the strength to say no to things she does not want for herself. Produced in the border areas on the Finnish and Norwegian side of Sápmi, around Länsman’s home village Ohcejohka, the film’s title comes from the northern Saami word “Dajan,” which directly translates to “I say.” The song invites you to move freely in the world to the beat of your own decisions.
Skierri – vaivaiskoivujen maa /Skierri – Land of the Dwarf Birches (1982)
Dir. Markku Lehmuskallio | 118 min.
In Sápmi, a reindeer herder follows the traditional cycles of migratory life, which keep him apart from his home and wife for long periods of time. “Two cultures collide, the minority culture and the majority one. We try to show another way of thinking in this world,” said director Markku Lehmuskallio. The director spent a year working with reindeer herders before filming to better understand the Sámi way of life. Skierri was the first Finnish feature film in which the Sámi people speak their language. The music of Erik Satie is combined with the sounds of nature.
Biegga bieggá /Wind is Winding (2024)
Dir. Jenni Laiti & Lada Suomenrinne | 42 min.
They swallow our rivers, and the valleys turn into one big tear of grief. Yet, there are beings who gather the grief for a journey, for what they are carrying the wounded trees and all living beings. Their luggage is full of legacy from the world that is ending, and they will find the path to a portal when the first snow of the winter falls. The wind blows and leads the voyagers to a utopia, challenging them with the questions of being.
Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 2 — On Nomadism and Flow (2022) and Part 5 — On the Gumpi (2022)
Dir. Joar Nango & Ken Are Bongo | 37 min. (Part 2) and 40 min. (Part 5)
As a prologue to his 2020 exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall, Joar Nango made three films, together with Sámi filmmaker Ken Are Bongo, that explore Sámi architecture in a TV show format. The series was produced by Bergen Kunsthall as part of the official festival program for the Bergen International Festival in May 2020, which could not be held in a physical form due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The series was filmed with a mobile TV studio during travels through the northern landscape, meeting guests for interviews and visiting key architectural sites.
Sámi Bojá (2015)
Dir. Elle Sofe Henriksen | 9 min.
Sámi Bojá is about Mikkel, a reindeer herder who has the entire responsibility for his family’s herd. He has a tough shell like a Sámi bojá should have, but internally, there is chaos.
Maiílmmittkus (2024)
Dir. Hans Pieski & Arttu Nieminen | 8 min.
Modern technology is often seen as a downfall of sustainable ways of living on the land, but according to many historians the Sámi have themselves, at least partly, embraced and welcomed the technical revolution in the past. What is modern technology’s relationship to the Sámi culture? Is breaking away from technology possible anymore? In this surreal journey into their complex relationship, various stages of technological development are depicted alongside their impact on Indigenous populations.
Purchase Passes
Viewing FAQ

DAY TWO | THE 2025 SÁMI FILM FESTIVAL
2025-02-08 13:00 - 17:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
The Annual Sámi Film Festival returns to Scandinavia House and virtually nationwide! Now in its 7th year, the festival celebrates the rich storytelling traditions of the Sámi, an Indigenous people of the northernmost parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. This year’s program is curated by acclaimed visual artist Matti Aikio, whose work in sound and video art has captivated audiences across the globe, and one of 12 artists featured in Arctic Highways, a 2023 exhibition exploring contemporary art by Indigenous artists from the Arctic. Presented annually in partnership with the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, this year’s festival will also be co-presented with Anchorage Museum, a significant art, history, ethnography, ecology, and science museum dedicated to studying and exploring the land, peoples, art, and history of Alaska.
SCHEDULE
Dajan — I say (2024)
Dir. Alice Márja Jektevik, Kim Saarinen | 4 min.
A music video consisting of two songs by Hildá Länsman & Tuomas Norvios, “Gulan” and “Dajan,” Dajan — I Say mirrors artist and yoiker Länsman’s personal journey in finding her way back home to Sápmi, and discovering the strength to say no to things she does not want for herself. Produced in the border areas on the Finnish and Norwegian side of Sápmi, around Länsman’s home village Ohcejohka, the film’s title comes from the northern Saami word “Dajan,” which directly translates to “I say.” The song invites you to move freely in the world to the beat of your own decisions.
Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 2 — On Nomadism and Flow (2022) and Part 5 — On the Gumpi (2022)
Dir. Joar Nango & Ken Are Bongo | 37 min. (Part 2) and 40 min. (Part 5)
As a prologue to his 2020 exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall, Joar Nango made three films, together with Sámi filmmaker Ken Are Bongo, that explore Sámi architecture in a TV show format. The series was produced by Bergen Kunsthall as part of the official festival program for the Bergen International Festival in May 2020, which could not be held in a physical form due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The series was filmed with a mobile TV studio during travels through the northern landscape, meeting guests for interviews and visiting key architectural sites.
Maiílmmittkus (2024)
Dir. Hans Pieski & Arttu Nieminen | 8 min.
Modern technology is often seen as a downfall of sustainable ways of living on the land, but according to many historians the Sámi have themselves, at least partly, embraced and welcomed the technical revolution in the past. What is modern technology’s relationship to the Sámi culture? Is breaking away from technology possible anymore? In this surreal journey into their complex relationship, various stages of technological development are depicted alongside their impact on Indigenous populations.
Sámi Bojá (2015)
Dir. Elle Sofe Henriksen | 9 min.
Sámi Bojá is about Mikkel, a reindeer herder who has the entire responsibility for his family’s herd. He has a tough shell like a Sámi bojá should have, but internally, there is chaos.
Purchase Tickets

NORDIC BOOK CLUB ONLINE | I TALK ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME
2025-02-11 18:00 - 19:00 | NY
Read and discuss literature with our Nordic Book Club Online! On February 11, we’ll be discussing Norwegian performance artist and playwright Camara Lundestad Joof’s I Talk about It All the Time, a biting and lyrical memoir about her experiences as a queer Black Norwegian woman.
What does it mean to be Norwegian? Born in Bodø to Norwegian and Gambian parents, Joof experiences microaggressions that belie the myth of a colorblind contemporary Scandinavia. She wrestles with the fickle palimpsest of memory, demanding communion with her readers even as she recognizes her own exhaustion in the face of constantly being asked to educate others. “I regularly decide to quit talking to white people about racism,” writes Joof. Such discussions often feel unproductive, the occasional spark of hope coming at enormous personal cost. But not talking about it is impossible, a betrayal of self. The book is a self-examination as well as societal indictment. It is an open challenge to readers, to hear her as she talks about it, all the time.
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POSTPONED — AFROSWEDISH PLACES OF BELONGING
2025-02-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
*This event has been postponed; a new date will be announced.*
Join us for a book talk with Nana Osei-Kofi, an ASF Fellow and Professor Emerita of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University, on her new book AfroSwedish Places of Belonging, out now from Northwestern University Press.
This new work of cultural studies rooted in critical feminist thought grapples with AfroSwedishness in relation to processes and experiences of racialization, imagination of self, and notions of belonging, agency, and kinship. Nana Osei-Kofi focuses on the function of diverse forms of critical cultural expressions, paying particular attention to their liberatory public pedagogical potential. Drawing from biographical narratives, documentary film, digital Black feminism, and queer organizing, Osei-Kofi offers insights into the embodied, affective, and experiential processes through which the formation of an emergent AfroSwedish coalitional identity is made possible.
Through self-reflexive, structural, and community-based forms of exploration that resist binary oppositions, AfroSwedish Places of Belonging asks what the nomenclature of AfroSwede, AfroSwedish, and AfroSwedishness brings into being, what it makes possible, and what this means for Swedish society from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. This work brings together two identity categories that have historically been constructed as not only mutually exclusive but oppositional to detail the emergence of AfroSwedishness as a counterhegemonic and coalitional act. AfroSwedishness, Osei-Kofi argues, must be understood as a coalitional identity, one made legible through kinship-based community.

FLOW
2025-02-12 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for a special screening of Flow (dir. Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia/France/Belgium, 2024)! The film, which had its New York premiere at Scandinavia House during the 2024 New York Baltic Film Festival, recently won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and is Latvia’s contender for Best International Feature at the 97th Academy Awards. Director Gints Zilbalodis will be present for an audience Q&A.

A wondrous journey through natural and mystical realms, the animated feature Flow (dir. Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia/France/Belgium, 2024) follows a courageous cat and a capybara, lemur, bird and dog after their homes are devastated by a great flood. Teaming up to navigate a boat in search of dry land, the animals must rely on trust, courage and wits to survive the perils of their newly aquatic planet. Flow is a thrilling animated spectacle and a profound meditation on environmental fragility, as well as the spirit of friendship and community. Through charming, expressive, and visually enrapturing 3D animation, director Gints Zilbalodis stunned audiences at Cannes with this heartwarming tale of friendship, teamwork, and adventure.
“Brimming with sentiment but not sentimentality, one of the most moving animated films in recent memory, and groundbreaking too” (IndieWire).
“A joy to experience but also a deeply affecting story, the work of a unique talent who deserves to be ranked among the world’s great animation artists” (The Hollywood Reporter).

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LENA JONSSON TRIO
2025-02-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us February 13 for a performance by Swedish folk artists the Lena Jonsson Trio! Acclaimed for their unique mix of deeply rooted Swedish folk, jazz, American old-time and electroacoustic sounds, the trio has been the recipient of awards including Artist of the Year at the Swedish Folk awards. Led by the visionary musician Lena Jonsson alongside guitarist Erik Ronström and bassist Krydda Sundström, the virtuosic and playful trio’s album Stories from the Outside won both a Swedish Grammis and the Manifest prize in 2021. Stories from the Outside also won Album of the year by LIRA Music Magazine and song of the year by Swedish radio. They released their third album Elements in June 2023.
“One of the best crafted ‘new traditions’ compilations I’ve heard for a long time” (The Living Tradition).
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ANIMAL
2025-02-15 18:30 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
See the two of the shortlisted finalists for this year’s LUX Audience Awards this season at Scandinavia House! On February 15 we’ll be screening Animal, director Sofia Exarchou’s “darkly intriguing” (The Hollywood Reporter) film exploring the downsides of all-inclusive tourist hotels.
Under the hot Greek sun, the animateurs at an all-inclusive island resort prepare for the busy touristic season. Kalia is the leader of the pack. Paper decors, glossy costumes and dance shows fill the stage. As summer intensifies and the work pressure builds up, their nights become violent and Kalia’s struggle is revealed in the darkness. But when the spotlights turn on again, the show must go on.
This event has been organized by the European Parliament in partnership with Scandinavia House.
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