ALUNA has not yet been made publicly available as we do not want to endanger any potential TV or cinema release. But film festivals are another matter, and so ALUNA is now about to appear in Finland.
The Kogi have a connection to the Sámi (northern Finland) who took a keen interest in the original TV film, saying that the Kogi spoke for them. Now ALUNA is being shown at the Helsinki DocPoint Festival on its opening and closing days (22 and 27 January) and at the sister-event, Tallin Docpoint, on 25th.
Then the film and Alan fly north to the Sámi. Up there the middle of winter is a time when the sun never rises – in fact the first sunrise of the year happened on 10th January (sunset followed in a matter of minutes). The film will be shown in the auditorium of the Sámi Museum Siida immediately before the opening of their Indigenous Film and TV Festival, Skábmagovat (“Endless Night”).
The opening ceremony itself is in the Northern Lights Theatre, which is made entirely of snow and is reached by a lantern-lit path through the pines, and lit with candles. Films shown there may have to compete with the actual Northern Lights, while the audience try to concentrate in a temperature of around -20C. They have had showings at -40 (C or F, it’s the same at that temperature).
For the Kogi, the Sámi are the people whose home corresponds to the most sacred snow peaks. The deep theme of the film is primaeval darkness, the sphere of ALUNA, cosmic consciousness.