Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
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“In Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, the Women are Voicing Out Their Deepest Feelings and Thoughts, But Here in Sauna Day the Focus is On the Unsaid”: Anna Hints and Tushar Prakash on their Cannes-Debuting short Sauna Day
When I last interviewed Estonian filmmaker Anna Hints it was to discuss her Sundance 2023-premiering Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, which would go on to win the World Cinema Documentary Competition Directing Award. (It also nabbed Best Documentary at the 36th European Film Awards on its way to becoming Estonia’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars.) The film offers quite a unique peek into a UNESCO-designated tradition that for centuries has allowed women like those the director (and contemporary artist and experimental folk musician) respectfully lenses to bond, heal and reveal in a safe space of smoke and sweat. And […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 26, 2024 -
Doc (and Art-Film) Blocking: How Algorithmic Content Moderation is Hurting Indie Films
You have to look hard to find a trailer for the recent release of Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, Estonia’s entry for this year’s Best International Feature Film category, on Facebook and Instagram — and forget about clips. Even though the lyrical documentary about women in an Estonian sauna has won numerous top prizes around the world—Best Directing at Sundance 2023; Best Documentary at San Francisco International; Best Documentary at the 2023 European Film Awards; Best Cinematography at IDFA 2024—many of the film’s artful moving images of women’s bodies were banned by Meta’s algorithms, and the U.S. distributor Greenwich Entertainment had to […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Feb 9, 2024 -
“Creative Storytelling Needs Rather Simple Tools”: Editors Tushar Prakash and Hendrik Mägar on Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
In Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, the hazy and intimate doc from Estonian director Anna Hints, a group of women bear body and soul for the camera as they engage in lengthy shvitzes and discuss their most personal thoughts and memories while worshiping the divine feminine connection they all share. Editors Tushar Prakash and Hendrik Mägar discuss how they each approached cutting the film, with Mägar coming on during post-production to do the final edit. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 31, 2023 -
“My Own Sweat Would Drip Onto the Camera”: DP Ants Tammik on Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Women bear all in Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, the intimate documentary from Estonian filmmaker Anna Hints. While partaking in the ritualistic cleanse, a group of women divulge secrets, talk through past traumas and, above all, foster their feminine bond while sweating bullets in the nude. DP Ants Tammik tells Filmmaker about the complications of shooting in such a hot, stuffy environment with sensitive equipment —and a few injuries he sustained along the way. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 31, 2023 -
“Two Lenses and a Monitor Did Not Survive” | Anna Hints, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? I must say that the Smoke Sauna Sisterhood journey has been a total roller-coster or as we call in Estonian “American hills.” So I am more than delighted that in the end of the journey we end up with the world premiere at Sundance in the middle of real American mountains. The first big obstacle was that my first producer […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 31, 2023 -
“I Realized That a Sauna Is Not Just for Cleaning the Body, but Also the Soul”: Anna Hints on Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Debuting January 22 in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is an intimate look at a tradition that UNESCO has added to its “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” This might appear to be a heavy designation for a way to sweat out stress. Unless, of course, one happens to be South Estonian like director Anna Hints, who grew up with the knowledge that for centuries smoke saunas have also been a place of life (birth) and death. For the small group of women that have generously allowed Hints to serve as a cinematic fly-on-the-wall […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 22, 2023
