Women in Protective Darkness of Smoke Sauna

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, a feature documentary by Estonian film director Anna Hints, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition programme.

By Andrei Liimets Photos by Virge Viertek

Where does the idea for this film stem from?

It is rooted in the time when I was around eleven years old. My grandfather died and before his funeral me, my grandmother, my aunt and my niece had a sauna together. It was there that my grandmother said for the very first and the very last time that my grandfather had cheated on her, had been together with another woman. She cried it all out from her and made peace with it.

I was far from considering it becoming a film back then, but I suddenly understood the meaning of the space created in a smoke sauna. How it can heal, how all emotions are allowed and accepted there. And then there’s the sisterhood. It doesn’t even need to be women, it doesn’t depend on gender, it’s a community.

The clear idea for the film dawned on me in 2015 when I was at a monastery with my mother, with whom I had a very difficult relationship (portrayed in Anna’s short 2018 documentary With Mum at the Monastery - ed). I wanted to write the idea down so badly, but we weren’t allowed to write or even talk. There was only one nun, whom I could confide in. I told her I felt the need to put the idea on paper, but she told me no - if it is impor- tant, it will remain with you, trust it. If you still have the feeling after 26 days, then that’s the feeling to follow. And so it was!

There have been a couple of Finnish films that revolve around sauna culture, but they have centred on men. In Estonian there is the famous say- ing about anonymous gossip “women said so at the sauna” - I think this might be the first film about the actual women at the sauna. I guess so! And I haven’t seen a film take place in a smoke sauna either, which is also very important, because of the specific culture of South Estonia. It’s not only our bodies we go to clean there.

Your short film Ice got quite a lot of recognition both home and abroad. Despite this, you have only directed documentaries since then. Why has this been your choice?

I actually study working with actors at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, and I’m also in post-production with a new short film Weight of Light, shot in India, which will hopefully get its release soon.

Watching films, there was a point when I felt that the most interesting things are happening in documentaries, which are more organic and more flexible, push the boundaries and experiment more. That really inspired me. I also keep trying to figure out how to bring this organic feel to fiction films, both on the industry side and in working with actors. I’m still looking for my path.

I didn’t really connect with the way filmmaking is classically taught. It didn’t fulfil me as an artist. I want to experiment and find the best format for the idea I have. Most importantly, I see myself as a filmmaker, not a fiction director or a documentary director. Of course the industry needs to separate the two by name, but when you look at the best documentaries, they mix together so many genres. It’s the same with fiction films that inspire memy next short also walks the line between a fiction film and a documentary.

In documentaries, true miracles can take place though. There’s a coming together, where everyone feels something happening - we’re all there in the sauna and suddenly everyone can feel the vibration in the room.

Are these magic moments in documentaries something you need to be there for at the right place at the right time, or is it something you can direct?

Of course there is direction involved. Some people think documentaries are objective. If such a thing even exists, the involvement of the director, of the crew, of the camera already makes it subjective.

My first education was in photography and the first thing we were taught was that you don’t need to strive for this idea of objectivity, rather an essence. You try to catch a miracle. As a director, you create the space, the situation, the environment where this miracle might take place. And if you succeed, you need to be prepared to capture it. You’re there at this sauna for many hours already and then, suddenly… shh… it happens!

It was crazy how we filmed - especially for our cinematographer Ants Tammik and the sound recordist Tanel Kadalipp. I’m so grateful for their willingness to come and experiment in extremities with me. The sauna was actually hot, which some cinematographers told me just wasn’t possible to film in, that we’d need to do it at lower temperatures. I was too stubborn to back down, because I felt we could only make this film in the real hot sauna. Ants was prepared to take the risk and look for solutions - we created a cooling system, put ice bags around the cameras, had an assistant ready with water for us all the time. It was all possible thanks to producer Marianne Ostrat who was ready to come on this challenging journey with us!

In such an intimate film about sisterhood, how did it affect you having a male cinematographer there?

I wondered the same thing at first, and I did consider finding a female cinematographer. But then I decided not to base the decision on gender, but solely on the artistic merit. Ants and I went to school together and I really like his visual language. He was onboard right away and we had a test shoot with Kadi Kivilo, the main member of the sisterhood in the film. There was no discomfort and everything went fine. I was there all the time as well, and for some moments we did send the men outside and only recorded audio.

Were you close to the women in the film from before? They do make themselves very vulnerable.

I knew some of them. A few of them entered my life during the seven years it took to make the film. I met them, felt a connection, and invited them to take part.

Not all of the faces are on the screen. Yes, we relied on how everyone would feel comfortable. At first, we didn’t get the funding we asked for, despite pitching the idea at IDFA. They said that no-one would want to see a film where you could see none of the faces. I felt that would show where we are as a society. The fact that during the 21st century women still feel potential harm while telling their stories shows how long of a way we still have to go.

It was also funny for me because as an artist I feel there are much more interesting ways to show a human being than just as a talking head. It made me find new solutions and became our strength.

It’s a whole other topic as to why making a film takes seven years. In 2016 we pitched the idea at IDFA, and weren’t given funding for going into production right away with the main reason given that Finland had already made a film about men in a sauna. I held my head and thought about the horrors of being a filmmaker - you create something and have such a strong belief in it and then there’s someone with power who can pretty much just disregard it.

That’s so odd for me, because while watching the film I was most disappointed once the first face appeared on screen. Just focusing on the naked bodies felt so exciting, because it normalises human bodies and asks, why nakedness causes so much discomfort, why is there so much of a stigma, especially concerning women’s bodies.

Absolutely! Those are all ideas I was con-

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

Feature documentary (89’)

Writer & Director: Anna Hints

Cinematographer: Ants Tammik

Sound Recordist: Tanel Kadalipp

Editors: Hendrik Mägar, Tushar Prakash, Qutaiba Barhamji

(FR), Martin Männik, Anna Hints

Composers: Eðvarð Egilsson (IS) & EETER

Sound Designer: Huldar Freyr Arnarson (IS)

Producer: Marianne Ostrat

Co-Producers: Juliette Cazanave, Hlín Jóhannesdóttir, Eero Talvistu †

Production companies: Alexandra Film (Estonia), Kepler22 Productions (France), Ursus Parvus (Iceland)

Financiers: Estonian Film Institute, The Cultural Endowment of Estonia, CNC, SACEM, Icelandic Film Centre, Sundance Institute Documentary Program, Tartu Film Fund

World Sales: Autlook Filmsales templating. I actually thought about not showing any faces, but during filming, some women did want to show their faces on screen, because attaching their voices and faces to their stories felt empowering to them. It was such an interesting process, because one of the participants was clear about not wanting her face shown at first, but after three years came to me to say: I want you to show my face. She had gone through an internal process and arrived at the conclusion that this is the way you need to address such issues in society.

Speaking of the issues, there is a long recollection of a rape in the film. It was so painful, sad and repulsive I wanted to apologise for the whole male gender. I’m guessing it wasn’t the only such story from these seven years. How did you choose which narratives you wanted to focus on?

That is my own story. I wasn’t planning on telling it, but it just happened there in the sauna. I had never told anyone about it at such length. I’m supposed to direct others, but that’s how it went. I was sceptical afterwards and didn’t want to include it in the film. Then Martin Männik, with whom we edited a 20 minute sample scene for the Sundance Institute Documentary Program to apply for funding, heard the story and, without knowing it’s mine, told me it needs to be in the film. I tried to vouch for other stories, because, sadly, it’s not the only such story we had. Statistically speaking, there were five of us in the sauna, with every last one of us having experienced sexual assault, and three of us rape. And then the Sundance Institute supported us and said that the world needs to hear this story.

That’s what I find the most harrowing - such a story not being an extreme example, but a shared experience. Within the time of making this film, there’s been the #MeToo movement with so many people speaking out, do you feel any actual change has taken place?

There has definitely been a change. I even saw it among the women around me, with them becoming prepared to show their faces and their bodies on film. Some of them still want to remain anonymous, but some eventually decided to be credited with their names. When we started in 2015, I was told it was impossible to make such a film - no one will be open to share their stories. I will not allow myself the illusion that everything is fine now, but the ground is ready for more women to speak up and open themselves.

It fascinates me that when we’ve spoken to various foreign industry members, their feedback has fallen into two categories. Some of them are really excited by how openly we embrace the women and their stories, while some - and this isn’t down to gender - feel that while the topics are important, we shouldn’t show menstrual blood on the big screen, or that the rape story is too detailed.

Hearing the latter conversely gives me strength. When someone tells me that we need to speak about a topic, but not too much, I feel that as soft censorship. I’m so strongly against that. One person suggested for me to imply rape, but not really talk about it as fact. I mean - what the hell!? On the contrary, the facts are the ones we have to talk about.

We can’t put on a brave face as if nothing actually happened. It happens every single day. I have to live with it every single day. If you have a supporting space around you, both mentally and physically, no story should be too much.

I actually thought the menstrual blood scene might be the most important in the film. It did make me uncomfortable, but that’s exactly why it needs to be shown. We have stigmatised ourselves into a situation, where someone’s discomfort makes us cover up something that is absolutely natural and normal. Exactly! That’s what ignites me - the question about where does this kind of an idea stem from, that you need to be able to remain in your comfort zone all the time, or that art needs to be comfortable. It’s a welfare state syndrome. I become interested when I start feeling uncomfortable. I start questioning myself: oh wow, where is this coming from?

All these patronising remarks empower me. At first I became angry, but then I became empathetic to how many women have internalised patriarchal thought, how deeply it runs on a cellular level. And so we feel the need to cover up menstruation. Or childbirth! I mean, when giving birth, I shat, I pissed, I puked, and I bled a lot. But we have this Madonna-like understanding of a mother gracefully feeding her child. In reality, it can be a total horror show - you have these breasts secreting milk, then nothing coming out, and it’s so painful. And then we are not willing to talk about the reality, which is so hypocritical. We want the real stories, to talk about issues, while not really talking about them, not really dealing with the reality.

A perfect illustration of this is when a well-known family magazine asked for a friend of mine, a folklorist, to write a story about cradle songs for Mother’s Day. In our folklore, there were songs about the baby dying, which were designed to prepare the mother psychologically for that possibility, because child mortality was very high. And the editor deleted this section, replying that it’s not suitable for Mother’s Day. That shows you where we really are.

I hope your film gets its release on Mother’s Day! The premiere was at Sundance in January. In the Nordic countries, saunas and the nakedness it involves are part of our culture, but how much did you think about foreign audiences for whom it might feel plain weird?

I don’t really think about it that way. When I get a strong feeling a story needs to be told, I also have faith the world needs that story. Coming from within this culture, when I was a teenager, I wanted to get away from it. I thought life would be way cooler somewhere else - that I’d be off to Berlin to never return. I travelled a lot and stayed in America for four months, visiting Native American reservations.

During one of those visits, I was at a sweat lodge ceremony, singing native songs. The Native Americans sang theirs, and I sang my folk songs. And then it dawned on me how similar the two are. That this sweat lodge seems so exotic and special for me, while it actually functions very much like the smoke sauna back home. I saw my roots. So yeah, I needed to go to the other side of the world to really appreciate my grandmother’s creaking smoke sauna. And I saw the universality of people longing for such spaces, for such communities. BF