Feature article: Cinematic worlding: Animating Karelia in Santra and the Talking Trees

Abstract

Abstract In the Finnish short documentary Santra ja puhuvat puut (Santra and the Talking Trees) (2013), the director Miia Tervo travels to Russian Karelia in search of her roots in the cradle of Finno-Ugrian mythology and culture. She finds rune singer Santra Remsujeva and a sense of home that she has longed for. I suggest that Tervo uses filmmaking as a means to ‘take root’ by connecting with the mythical world of Karelia through a playful aesthetic that engages all the senses. The documentary weaves together the director/narrator’s intimate voice-over, observational scenes, animations with traditional cultural motifs, old ethnographic material and archival footage in a process of ‘cinematic worlding’. The cinematic rhythms and animated traces of the past create a sensory experience of Karelia – a slowly vanishing culture that Tervo revitalizes in an effort to find her place in the world.