On the 27th September at the Forbidden City Music Hall in Beijing, the Norwegian Oscar nominated movie Pathfinder will be screened as a silent movie, but accompanied by live music composed and performed by young Norwegian musicians from the Barents region.
The intense action adventure film from 1987 has become a milestone in Norwegian film history as the first feature film directed and played by the Sami - indigenous people that inhabits the Arctic region.
Set on the Finnmarksvidda plateau in Northern Norway and inspired by a Sámi oral storytelling circulated in the 11th century, the film Pathfinder follows Aigin, a young Sámi hunter who sees his family massacred by Chudes, a tribe from the East. Aigin swears revenge, but to save other Sámi who have fled to the coast, he must become a guide and pathfinder for the Chudes on a dangerous path through a rugged winter landscape.
Yoik, the traditional form of song and music of the Sami, carries the Sami cultural tradition and their personal memories through mimicking the natural sound and chanting. The beautiful and mythical Yoik is rooted in the shamanistic cultures but it is also related to the life of Sami in the modern world.
It is said that for a complete spiritual experience of Yoik, one needs to travel to the Sápmi land and to listen to the Yoik under the midnight sun or under the northern lights. While you are preparing for your adventure to the Sami land, the Pathfinder film concert will bring the Yoik and Sami to you for a close-to-real experience.