Educational Media Reviews Online

This documentary is about a young reindeer herder, Ivanna, living in the Arctic tundra with her five children. This window into her world all feels very real and does not seek to hide much of Ivanna’s life or struggles. It’s an interesting location, culture and individual to center a documentary around, and would be fitting for an international studies or anthropology course, and perhaps for a study on interpersonal or family relationships. While there is a little context for the footage, and background story of Ivanna’s childhood revealed mainly through conversational dialog, the documentary would have been strengthened with the addition of information provided on-screen or through more story-telling dialog. As it stands, students could easily feel puzzled while viewing and find the overall story ambiguous. All things considered, this would be a challenging film to use in the classroom, and when suitable would be for very specific cases.

Awards:
Zurich Film Festival, Documentary Competition; Elgouna Film Festival, Feature Documentary Competition

Published and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Anyone can use these reviews, so long as they comply with the terms of the license.