Dir. Anna Hints
2023 | 89 mins | Estonia, France, Iceland
Estonian with English subtitles

SHOWING TIMES:

• Sun 15 Oct: 5pm
• Tue 17 Oct: 2pm | Relaxed Screening / Parents and Baby
• Tue 17 Oct: 8.30pm
• Wed 18 Oct: 5.45pm | Hosted by Reclaim the Frame
• Sat 28 Oct: 3.50pm
• Sun 29 Oct: 3.50pm

See below for more details about the Relaxed Screening & Reclaim the Frame event.

In the darkness of smoke sauna, women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences. Through a sense of communion, women wash off the shame trapped in their bodies and regain their strength. The first documentary by an Estonian director to compete and win at Sundance, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is a deeply moving, intimate and breathtaking approach to issues of trauma, healing, and community.

Loaded with scandi imagery and filmed almost as if a Vermeer or Rembrandt painting, the camera is never intrusive, never mechanical. Rather, the images move as the smoke – lingering, wafting, suspended briefly before disappearing and reappearing. With an authentic voice and authority born of their own heritage, filmmaker Anna Hints has created a transformative experience of being human within a female body, showing women “as they are” with great emotional veracity and deep empathy.

Winner: Sundance Film Festival Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary

Join Reclaim the Frame for a special screening and social event on Wed 18 October.

RECLAIM THE FRAME

All screenings are presented in collaboration with Reclaim The Frame – a mission to bring ever-greater audiences to films by women to widen and enrich cinema’s perspective of the world, run by charity Birds’ Eye View, and backed by the BFI’s Audience Fund. Visit the website to learn more and join the #ReclaimTheFrame mission and to receive free cinema tickets, discount codes and other film goodies.

Tue 17 October will be a relaxed screening where parents with babies will be welcome.

To broaden the opportunity to experience this beautiful and intimate film, we are offering a relaxed screening on Tue 17 Oct, 2pm. The lights will be dim, the volume a little lower and our audience are welcome to move about, bring babies under 12 months and enjoy the film in a friendly, inclusive environment.

Sundance Film Festival 2023 Winner

Directing Award: World Cinema – Documentary
Anna Hints

∆ BBFC Rating Details:

15 – references to sexual violence, domestic abuse and sex

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