Sanni Priha: Farewell to the snow – Snowline

In her documentary film Snowline filmmaker Sanni Priha (b. 1981) addresses the grief over the disappearance of snow caused by climate change. In the film, snow acts as a narrator and speaks about its own existence and disappearance.

Snowline offers a glimpse into the constant transformation occurring within the snow cover – a process that typically only the eyes of a snow scientists observe. For snow scientists, snow has a lot to tell. A single snow crystal holds a record of its own formation history, and the fluctuations in weather conditions can be read from the layers of the snowpack.

By following the work of snow scientists, the film immerses the viewer inside the snow cover to observe how the crystals change shape, the layers compress, and slow flows move the snow mass millimetre by millimetre. As the snow ages, its optical properties change and its reflectivity decreases. Through its reflectivity, snow helps regulate the Earth's energy balance, making it indispensable for life on the planet.

The film was written together with sound designer Jarkko Kela. The work was developed over several years in Sápmi, Ars Bioarctica residency in Kilpisjärvi, and was filmed at the Arctic Space Centre in Sodankylä, the Finnish Environment Institute in Helsinki, and on the Rindnitšohkka fell in Enontekiö.

Sanni Priha works with creative documentary film and participatory performance. The site-specific processes of her works often take place at the intersections of physical exercises, environment, and narrative. Priha is a long-term member of the live art collective Other Spaces. She has studied film and drama studies at the University of London and documentary film at Aalto University. Snowline is part of Priha's artistic doctoral dissertation research at the University of Lapland.

Snowline is the second part of the Farewell to the Snow film trilogy, which is produced by Tuuli Penttinen-Lampisuo / Poike Productio.

The film has been supported by: AVEK, Chappe, the Kone Foundation, the Finnish Film Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, University of Lapland.