Santra and the Talking Trees

Résumé anglais "Cry after being too happy, fart after laughing too long !" Santra will occasionally warble the thousand-year-old Marjatta’s song, recorded by Finnish folklorist Lönnrot in the Finnish national epic Kalevala. Sometimes she will sing about the rebellious pussy that went crazy and left off to St. Petersburg. There are songs for potatoes, incantations for bathing in the sauna, spells for healing wounds. Santra has a good memory because she eats berries and knits complicated mittens, kinthaat. 95-year-old Santra, native of Russian Karelia, remembers thousands and thousands of Karelian songs, tales, spells and proverbs. The film is made up of small moments from everyday life, animated scenes and archive footage. It is a magic realistic collage of moods, depicting the Russian Karelian way of being and living which is now near extinction. Russian Karelia is the only place in the world where the Karelian culture of singing, crying, laughing and storytelling is still alive. Even there, Santra’s home is one of the few houses in which songs and stories crop up naturally and spirit and matter shake hands. "Anger spoils the harvest and envy kills the fish in the sea.