About the theme of AMIFF 2025: VERDDET, a friend, a helper

VERDDET, a friend, a helper

The title of the Arctic Moving Image & Film Festival, AMIFF 2025, has Sami and Norwegian wording. The festival presented last year an artistic collaboration to which the Várdobáiki Sami Center and the Sami music festival Márkomeannu, in Tjeldsund municipality contributed and also hosted. New this year is that Sør-Troms Museum also contributes to the collaboration.

In the two previous AMIFF festivals, BEND IT, MAYBE, and VALMAS ON IT, considerations around relational themes, with a focus on identity and belonging, have been the starting point and Verddet a friend, and helper follows this thread with a focus on alliance building and friendship.

Verddet from verddevuohta is an old Northern Sami term that describes a relationship of mutual dependence, which is known and used between reindeer herding Sami and Sami coastal populations. This collaboration is about helping each other and strengthening friendship through mutual services. In particular, the value of verddet is about finding a common solution even when interests differ.

Can friendship and neighborliness be a prerequisite for productive cooperation and a model for constructive political relations? And can it help build loyalty that transcends borders and identity political categories?

Verddet, a friend, a helper is intended to bring an alternative to the polarizing dogmatic attitude of the times to the fore..

-Kjetil Berge, mein curator of AMIFF 2025