Exploring an age-old Estonia tradition that celebrates female solidarity and community, Anna Hints' Smoke Sauna Sisterhood lays bare the emotions and experiences of a group of women coming together to observe, speak and listen. Having premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood has been selected as Estonia’s entry into next year’s Academy Awards, and is programmed to screen at Fragments Festival on October 1st.
As much a poem as it is a documentary, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood has a lyrical nature, a piece that transcends the typical requirements of a documentary for a more emotionally fulfilling viewing experience. Without a stitch of clothing in sight, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood may have lent itself to a voyeurism that would have undone the progressive intentions of the entire documentary. Yet, thanks to Anna Hints’ exquisite and enquiring direction, what may at first feel jarring coalesces into something satisfyingly freeing, creating such a safe and healing space that the absence of clothing is forgotten quite quickly.
With the stories recanted ranging from what could be considered mundane to the stark and devastating, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood comes to consider a wide range of topics. Still, it never passes judgment, giving every story and each woman a platform to cleanse their minds, bodies and souls in keeping with the tradition’s intentions. One particularly harrowing moment comes towards the end of the story, as one of the women shares a brutal and life-changing trauma: the group falls into silence, demonstrating a patience and support that allows their sister the space to process, convey and heal. It's the safe space that this documentary seeks to cultivate that makes it such a rare.
That Anna Hints manages to avoid any notion of prying or exploiting is a testament to her strength as a director, a creative whose unparalleled focus is on the amplification her work can give to the underserved and unheard. An extraordinary celebration of womanhood, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is as cleansing and rejuvenating for the audience as it is for the women who so bravely share their souls, and both groups are enriched as a result.
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood screens at Fragments Festival on October 1st, followed by a wider theatrical release on October 13th.