Viennale 2023: Anna Hints Q&A on SAVVUSANNA SÕSARAD

Anna Hints doing a Q&A after the screening of SAVVUSANNA SÕSARAD (SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD) at Stadtkino im Künsterlhaus.

SAVVUSANNA SÕSARAD (SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD)
Anna Hints | Estonia, France, Iceland 2023 | 89 min

A group of women are going through standard sauna rituals: pouring water on the heated rocks, washing, talking and hitting and massaging each other with birch branches. This same group is recorded for around a year, across all four seasons. It begins in the winter: heat inside, snow outside. As we see the women running towards a winter pool carved into the ice wearing nothing but wool socks, there is something about the change in temperature that goes beyond mere hot and cold, it has more to do with a feeling, a bodily sensation: the contraction of the skin and blood vessels, the way the air passes through the lungs, how voices bounce around in space. Over time their conversations expand and deepen, as they move towards a disentanglement of their gender roles, approaching the habitual intimacy of the sauna sessions as a way to reflect on their common experiences as women with families, on love, life, death and violence. Watching this unfold so neatly illustrates one of cinema’s enduring qualities: to make us aware of what happens when the same things are repeated over days, weeks and months, its condensed form allowing us to trace changes that would otherwise be imperceptible. (Lucía Salas)