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Smoke Sauna Sisterhood M

Director: Anna Hints
Origin: Estonia, France, Iceland (2023)
Language: Estonian with English subtitles
Genre: Documentary

Viewer Advice: Strong impact themes, discussion of sexual violence.


In the southern Estonian woods, a group of women talk and embrace the soul-cleansing power of steam in this Sundance award-winning documentary.

As the seasons change outside, in a woodland world away from men, a group of Võro women regularly gathers inside a smoke sauna to sweat and chat. No topic is off-limits – body image, dating disasters, sex, motherhood, miscarriage, menstruation, abortion, abuse – and as they share their stories, some funny, some tragic, the women forge an unbreakable bond.

Writer/director Anna Hints won Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Directing Award for this impressive, hypnotic work of radical intimacy. Shot almost entirely within the smoke sauna itself (with occasional dips into the nearby lake to cool down), the film establishes an extraordinary sense of the community created by this unique space. The women’s truth-telling is raw, while the film’s expressive style – plentiful abstract close-ups of bodies of all shapes and sizes – bolsters this, inviting us to bear witness to their process of cleansing not just their bodies but their souls.

“Restorative, earthy yet ethereal … The small, smoky, steamy miracle of this film is how it creates something so intangible, so lyrical, from the absolutely elemental: fire, wood, water and lots of naked female flesh.” – Variety

Tickets

Fri 04 Aug 4:15 pm [14040]
Standby
ACMI 2
Assistive ListeningWheelchair Access100% Subtitles Hearing Loop
Past event

For information about the accessible services being offered at MIFF, please visit miff.com.au/access. If you require any access service, such as wheelchair/step-free access, for any MIFF session, please call 03 8660 4888 or email boxoffice@miff.com.au to book your ticket.

Director
Anna Hints
Producer
Marianne Ostrat
Cinematographer
Ants Tammik
Premiere Status
Victorian Premiere
Company Credit
Distributor: Madman Entertainment

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