Norwegian producer Elisa Fernanda Pirir has issued a stark warning about the dangers of global warming following a challenging shoot for Berlinale Panorama premiere Árru, which is being sold by The Yellow Affair.
The film follows an Indigenous Sámi reindeer herder fighting to protect her ancestorial land and is the first ever feature-length Sámi-language musical, with director Elle Sofe Sara the first female Sámi filmmaker to receive a grant from the Norwegian Film Institute.
Árru shot in the northern Sápmi region of Norway in autumn 2024 and winter 2025, to reflect seasonal change. The opening of the film had to be re-written during the shoot, as a direct result of the environmental crisis.
“The reindeers were supposed to swim, but they were not strong enough,” explained Pirir, who set up her Tromso-based company Staer after leaving Mer Film in 2023. “There is less food for the reindeers. Things are getting more expensive, the weather is getting more difficult. The winters are more brutal.”
Political filmmaking
Pirir said she only produces films that are political. “I have never produced anything that isn’t political.”
Her slate of upcoming projects includes as a co-producer on Hearing, the second film from Vietnamese filmmaker Lê Bảo, following his Berlinale Encounters special jury prize-winning Taste from 2021. It is currently in post. Staer has projects shooting in Guatemala and Jerusalem, with a Norwegian trans love story and a Ukrainian feature also in the works.
Guatemala-born Pirir, whose credits as a co-producer include Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36, says that Árru remains “the most difficult film I have ever produced”.
“I am an immigrant in this country [Norway], and of course, I experience racism. I’m a woman, of course, I have experienced sexual harassment. But after working on Arru, I understood that for Sámi women, [the harassment] is much more harsh, it’s much more difficult.”
Much of the cast are local Sámi artists and non-professional actors. Getting funding for the Sámi-language project from the Norwegian Film Institute, Pirir says, was difficult, owing to reluctance from the institute of backing a local film that required subtitling. The film was made for a modest budget of €1.7m.
Director Sara is also a choreographer. Pirir reached out to work with her after seeing her 2015 short, Sámi Bojá. “She was thinking about giving up on cinema,” said Pirir, of Sara’s reaction to her reaching out. “Many people don’t have the tools to go and pitch. [A filmmaker] has to work very hard to be in the position where you think you’re good enough to approach a good producer, so we lose a lot of talent.
“Many producers say, ‘But all the movies I get [pitched] are from males or from [directors out of] film schools.’ It’s because we are not searching for talent in other ways.”
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