When Johan Johanaš disappeared to the mountains

Máttáráhkká is a surreal and feminist growth story about Máret, a 38-year-old woman who dreams of leaving for Europe as an actress and escaping her arctic homeland. Predators are always present, blood is everywhere and women’s silence is golden.

When she meets the sexy and popular Johan Johanaš, a passionate relationship awakens her spiritual and sexual power, but also resurfaces old sexual and chauvinistic traumas. As a rebellious woman, she doesn’t obey the rule to stay away from the mountain Máttáráhkká. Nothing happens to Máret as she climbs there. She starts to make a film about it.

The film is invited to an European film festival and she flees – only to find that the dream place, called Europe, is grey and alienating. Máret chooses to return home. There she learns that Johan Johanaš has vanished in an avalanche. She is certain that Máttáráhkká is punishing her for not obeying the rules. But Johan Johanaš is not dead – he simply ghosted her.

Heartbroken, Máret turns fully to storytelling and begins making a film about sexual violence in her community.

If you want to survive in the world of beasts, you have to be a little bit of a beast yourself.