Reckoning with Repression, Imagining the Future: Arts About the Sámi Experiences in Finland

In Finland, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established in October 2021 to understand the past and present experiences of discrimination of Sámi people. The work towards establishing the TRC began already in 2017. Concurrently with this state-funded work, a wave of Sámi arts, in particular including film and literature, emerged. These artworks examine the state repression of Sámi culture and languages, show the resistance of the Sámi communities, and often imagine a future that is different from the present. My paper would analyse how this body of arts enters into dialogue with the work and findings of the TRC that completed its work in December 2025. As an example, this paper would analyse Katja Gauriloff’s film Je’vida (2023), the world’s first feature film in Skolt Sámi language, alongside the content of the TRC final report about the Sámi experiences in residential schools. For now, the media ignorance of the Sámi experiences shared in the TRC final report has left the artworks to shape public perceptions. The examination of this case study would open up an opportunity to evaluate the impact of alignment and divergencies of the narratives about the Sámi experiences. This contribution would continue to deepen understanding of arts as transformative justice in contexts where a wide societal rebuilding and reconfiguration does not occur.