Narrative Sovereignty and Censorship: film screening and panel

Narrative Sovereignty and Censorship:
Orsugiak film screening and panel

The Nordic House in Reykjavík and the Nordic Institute in Greenland (NAPA) invite you to a screening of the documentary Orsugiak: The White Gold of Greenland (2025), followed by a panel discussion focusing on narrative sovereignty and censorship in the Nordics.

Narrative sovereignty is the right of Indigenous people to speak on their own terms and shape the narratives of their representation. This right is supported by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). But what happens when Indigenous voices speak out against colonial structures? How do dominant narrative structures silence and censor voices that speak out against colonialism today?

Welcome to the screening followed by a panel:

Reykjavík | 22 October – The Nordic House in Reykjavík
Nuuk | 28 October – NAPA

Language: This event will be in English

The film Orsugiak: White Gold of Greenland (2025) is located in this tension. Since its release the film has represented the immense importance of upholding the right to narrative sovereignty and the lived reality of censorship. The film explores Denmark’s mining of cryolite in Ivittuut on Kalaallit Nunaat’s west coast, which took place between 1854 to 1987. Cryolite is a rare mineral that was used, among other things, in aluminium production. It was found in large quantities in the mentioned area until the mine was eventually depleted.

The documentary is produced by Wintertales production company in collaboration with Human Tales, with support from Den Vestdanske Filmpulje. The people behind the film are producer Michael Bévort, researcher Naja Dyrendom Graugaard, and directors Claus Pilehave and Otto Rosing. The film is in Danish with English subtitles.

Panellists:

Naja Dyrendom Graugaard is an Associate Professor, Center for Gender, Sexuality & Difference, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, at Copenhagen University. She is a Danish-Kalaaleq Inuk researcher with an expertise in past and present colonial relations between Denmark and Kalaallit Nunaat.

Claus Pilehave is a Danish screenwriter and director of documantary films and TV documentaries. Wrote the screenplay for ”The White Gold of Greenland” and co-directed it with Otto Rosing.

Giti Chandra Associate Research Professor with the Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme in Reykjavik and Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland.

Inuk Jørgensen is an award-winning filmmaker and an active figure in the Greenlandic film community. He has served on the board of the Association of Greenlandic Filmmakers (Film.GL) for several years and is best known for his often controversial short films addressing political, social, and cultural issues on the world’s largest island.

Ken Are Bongo is a Sámi director and cinematographer from a reindeer-herding family in Guovdageaidnu, rooted in the landscapes, culture, and storytelling traditions of the Arctic. After years of shaping images for film and television, he made his feature directorial debut with Ciao Ráhkis! His work is defined by a strong visual voice and an interest in stories where cultures, people, and different worlds meet in the North.

Moderator:

Sólveig Ásta Sigurðardóttir is an adjunct lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Iceland.

Accessibilty in Elissa is good; there is a low threshold into the room.
More information on accessibilty can be found here.

Coverphoto: Michael Bévort