Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (2023) - Anna Hints

The practice of gathering in woodland smoke saunas is age-old tradition in Southern Estonia. In Anna Hints’s engrossing documentary, the setting takes on a transcendent character, acting as a spiritual refuge for feminine intimacy. Women can comfortably exist in their nakedness, sharing their innermost thoughts on everything from family to self-esteem, traumatic births, and sexual assault. The intensity of their communion is balanced within the restorative atmosphere, where steam hisses over rocks and Edvard Egilsson’s score heightens this choral portrait of contemporary womanhood.
(Sydney Film Festival 2023)