An intimate exploration of craft practice as a portal to a sense of belonging.
Her Inherent Belonging is a character-driven feature documentary exploring how craft as a practice connects humans to place, their ancestral past and the moment in time in which they find themselves. Feeling a strong sense of belonging reminds us of our interdependence with each other and the natural world. When we are rooted in this feeling of belonging, we are more able to contribute to creating a future that serves the whole.
By following the lives of Finnish craftswomen from the quiet darkness of Finland’s long winter into the midnight sun of summer, Her Inherent Belonging will transport audiences into the intimacy of their studios and into their creative practices that are informed by the natural world around them and their ancestral past. Thoughtful, cinematic, and rooted in character, Her Inherent Belonging is an ode to the interconnection between people, craft and place - a way of being eloquently embodied in Finland.
Support Her Inherent Belonging - All contributions are tax-deductible for U.S. tax payers thanks to the generosity of our fiscal sponsor the International Folk Art Market. Your contributions will help with the many hard costs associated with completing the film and bringing this story to audiences. Add “For Her Inherent Belonging Film” in the Additional Information - Comments section.
Why Craft?
Living cultural heritage is a resource that binds people together. In our interdependent world, it is also one of the most powerful resources we have to transform our communities and innovate. Our cultural diversity and creativity expressed through the world’s artists, creators and makers helps shift our collective perspective, renew ideas and respond to global challenges.
In a modern global system that increasingly values convenience and cost over cultural heritage and the handmade, many traditional ways of life are threatened and their opportunities to evolve are limited. People are forced to leave rural areas and traditional livelihoods to seek economic opportunities in urban areas, disconnecting from their ancestral ways of life. Without mindful intention to actively preserve and keep craft traditions relevant, they will not exist for future generations. Therefore, elevating the status of craft through building awareness, encouraging innovation of traditional practices and creating economic opportunities for its sale, will ensure craft’s sustainability for the future. Her Inherent Belonging aims to illustrate the vitality of traditional craft, that is so evident in Finland, to help audiences remember the value of preserving place-specific cultural and natural heritage for future generations.
Why Finland?
Since the devastating destruction of Europe in World War II, there has been an international awareness of the necessity to safeguard cultural heritage as it strengthens our sense of who we are, where we came from and where we might go as humans in the future. Our living heritage enriches our lives in countless ways but also is the key to our survival.
In the beginning of the 1900s in Finland, individuality, creativity and handicrafts skills were stressed along with the values of internationalism and having a universally-educated population. Training in the field developed, crafts were practiced to an increasing degree and the use of different materials expanded. Craft studies became a university-level subject, permitting students of craft to pursue their studies to a doctoral level. By the 1980s, there was a growing awareness of environmental concerns and problems that led to meaningful discussions on the life-span of products and ethical sourcing of materials used. Finland’s craft culture continues to evolve with the growing needs of present times.
Finland can stand as an example for other places in the world where cultural heritage practices are at risk of being forgotten. There is a chronic urgency to acknowledge what could be lost and what has already been lost as humans set their sites on new technology that takes us even farther away from the tangible world. Finland can be seen as a model for the rest of the world for how to preserve both natural and cultural heritage for future generations.
Story & Structure
The film follows the stories of Finnish craftswomen from winter to the transition to summer. Through each of their lives and practices, the film explores a different aspect of belonging: To Place, To Time (Past & Future), To Now (The Present Moment). The film weaves their subtly-connected stories together by underscoring themes of resiliency, wholehearted dedication and innovation.
To Place - Hanna N.
Hanna Nore is a master traditional tanner. It all began when she processed her first squirrel at age 12. Voracious to learn the craft at a young age, she begged her parents and even the school librarian to find her books on the subject. Flash forward to ten years later, Hanna was teaching people twice her age. Hanna has committed herself to deepening her knowledge of traditional tanning practices that are both earth-honoring and ethically-mindful as an alternative to industrially-tanned leather and fur processing and she teaches anyone else who wants to learn the same. Now with over 16 years of teaching experience and with her books on the subject, she has single handedly revived an almost-lost traditional profession.
She’s recently been tasked with a very important challenge: a group of Sámi reindeer herders (Indigenous peoples of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia) are traveling down to her workshop on the Finnish archipelago from above the arctic circle to learn alternative ways to use leather and fur. Since the pandemic drastically disrupted the market by creating a surplus of reindeer meat and hides, the price for them is at an all time low and families whose livelihoods rely on reindeer are struggling to make ends meet. Though the Sámi have a vital practice of working with reindeer hides, they are now seeking to innovate upon their traditional knowledge in the hopes to keep their ways of life relevant for the future…
To Time (Past & Future) - Mervi Pasanan & Raseko’s Ancient Techniques students
Mervi Pasanan is a local newspaper journalist in Lahti. One summer, she was reporting on a story of a medieval fair and was immediately hooked. Twenty years later she is a master craftswomen and world-renowed specialist in Finnish Iron Age crafts. Mervi says she “LARPs” her day job as a journalist and her real life is in Iron Age crafts. She says its her responsibility to share this knowledge and contribute to further understanding of our past. Mervi works with archaeologists and researchers all over Scandinavia to identify and recreate textiles found at dig sites. She is currently working on a never-before found textile recreation informed by dna samples. She has until summer solstice to plant dye, weave and sew the piece to be presented in an upcoming Ancient DNA exhibition.
Finland’s world-renowned education is constructed to have “no dead ends” and students of all ages can access a free education. Raseko vocational school has the country’s only Ancient Techniques program in which students can receive a degree in Ancient Techniques. Graduates of this program often go into fields of archaeology, anthropology and also become working master craftspeople. The first year students are currently learning how to make traditional Finnish Iron Age clothing, learn tablet weaving and wool spinning amongst other techniques, in which they will present to the public at an upcoming event at their local library. The Raseko students represent the future and the beginning of Mervi’s journey as craftswomen marrying tradition with innovation carrying forward their tangible cultural heritage.
To Now - Hanna P.
Hanna Piipponen is a master shoemaker, spending the last 11 years making shoes. Trained as a visual artist, when she began experimenting with shoemaking she was immediately drawn to the process for its many steps and working with line, colors and three-dimensional shapes. Hanna studied shoemaking for six years and then apprenticed with a master shoemaker and took over his shop in her small town of Tuupovaara. Tuupovaara, a small town in eastern Finland, used to be a thriving artisan village known particularly for its cobblers. Today, Hanna is one of two people that still make the traditional style of Finnish shoes in the entire country. Through Hanna’s story, audiences are invited into the present moment - illustrating the meditative state that is achieved in the process of making shoes slowly and methodically by hand.
Tone & Style
Visually, Her Inherent Belonging will transport audiences to the fire-lit warmth of artist studios, to Finland‘s dense pine forests, crystal clear lakes, and vast arctic tundra illuminated by dancing northern lights - creating an embodied feeling of being there. To do so, the film will take a “slow” documentary approach with long, thoughtfully-composed shots, allowing life to unfold in frame. An invitation for audiences to notice the subtleties and explore the story for themselves.
Darkness as character: a staple of Finland’s enduring winter, provides a quiet incubation for the imagination and creative processes of each craftswomen.
Ambient sound as character: the spinning of raw native wool, the textured crackling of burning wood, wind blowing pine trees - ambient sound will be used to create a soundscape in combination with an ethereal music score.
Creative Team
Madison McClintock
Director, Cinematographer & Editor
Madison McClintock is an American independent documentary filmmaker and textile artist. Her aim is to document cultural and natural heritage for future generations and highlight the human stories behind them. Madison has had the privilege to work on predominantly impact-driven filmmaking for her career. Since 2022, she has worked with National Geographic’s Pristine Seas in field production for stories in the Marshall Islands, Palau and Papua New Guinea - the final films directly supporting the creation of national Marine Protected Areas. She received her BFA in Environmental Studies & Studio Art from Franklin University Switzerland and her MFA in Science & Natural History Filmmaking from Montana State University. Madison’s films Red Wolf Revival and Fungiphilia Rising have been broadcasted and featured at film festivals and in classrooms around the world.
Aino Juutilainen
Music Composer & Sound Designer
Aino Juutilainen is a cellist, composer and sound designer based in Helsinki, Finland. She is educated in classical music but her main focus is in composing and improvising as well as sound art. Her broad contact network includes both classical, jazz and pop musicians, choreographs, dancers, actors, theatre directors and puppet theatre artists. One of her dearest projects is her own group AINON that combines jazz, improvisation and classical music. In addition to that, is a member of Quartet Ajaton, Josu Mämmi trio, Vespera, Mikko Sarvanne Garden and Koi trio.
Project Origin Story
This story is deeply personal. Being from the U.S. with distant Nordic and Western European ancestry, I have felt over the years some confusion and a feeling of having “shallow roots.” Living for years in New Mexico, in which the Acoma and Taos communities are the longest continuously inhabited villages in North America with people living there over 1,000 years - I felt I had nothing to hold onto in terms of my own connection to ancestral land and cultural heritage. I have been particularly curious about how place-based knowledge - a deep understanding of nature in one place - has informed how people have evolved. For instance, what inherent knowing can come from generations working with birch bark? As a textile artist with a focus on natural dyes for color, working with my hands, growing and foraging plants is where I feel the most connected to a lineage of ancient knowledge that has been passed down for generations. I feel like I am a part of a continuity of deep understanding of how to work in reciprocity with the environment in which I live - like our ancestors did.
When I met Hannelle Köngäs, Finnish master weaver and ethnographer at the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2023, the largest gathering of folk artists and master craftspeople from around the world, and heard about the vital Finnish craft culture that is both sustainably-minded and a culturally-valued profession - my interest was piqued. Hannele was a weaving teacher for over 30 years and many active artisans regard her as a mentor and inspiration for why they do what they do. I was introduced to craftswomen from all over Finland eager to share their stories. It is through this relationship building and gaining trust that I arrived at this story.
Filmmaker’s Statement
For me, the documentary filmmaking process is as important as the final film. Humans on the most basic level have the same primary needs, and one is to validate their existence…to be seen. Making documentaries creates a unique opportunity for film participants to reflect on their place and contribution to the world. It offers an opportunity for self-reflection. As filmmakers we are also given intimate access to people’s lives and it is our responsibility to hold those with the utmost sensitivity and respect. Giving our full attention to someone else is the most subtle form of love and our field allows us to express that if we chose to do so. It is my belief that to capture the most authentic story you must invest in creating a real human relationship with your collaborators - to release your expectations of what the story might be and give your full attention to what is unfolding through the non-fiction film container.
Working predominantly in impact-driven filmmaking has given me the privilege and responsibility to work on sensitive topics and with underrepresented and marginalized communities other than my own. I have made many mistakes, asked for support when I was unsure and learned humbly from my collaborators - creating real, honest human moments. I feel this practice of vulnerability has strengthened me as a filmmaker.
Project Partners
The International Folk Art Market
Fiscal Sponsor & U.S. Promotional Partner
Film Production Grantor & Finland Promotional Partner
Finland Promotional Partner & Topic Advisor
Los Angeles Finlandia Foundation
U.S. Promotional and Fundraising Partner
Production Status & Contact
As of January 2025, Her Inherent Belonging is in-production. Our intention is to premiere the film in late 2026. We are currently seeking support for production costs and finishing funds. We are also looking for promotional and screening partners and open to collaboration on all fronts. Her Inherent Belonging is a fiscally-sponsored project of The International Folk Art Market, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. If you are interested in supporting the production, post-production and circulation of Her Inherent Belonging, please contact Director Madison McClintock or visit the International Folk Art Market Donations page.