Anastasia Lapsui


Anastasia Lapsui is a Soviet-born Russian Nenets film director, screenwriter, and radio journalist who has lived in Finland since 1993. Like the Finnish language, the Nenets languages belong to the Uralic languages family. Among Lapsui's honors are the Jussi Award for Best Film, and the Grand Prize at the Créteil International Women's Film Festival.

Biography

Anastasia Lapsui was born in Nida, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, northwest of Siberia, in 1944. She graduated from Ural State University in Sverdlovsk Oblast. Early in her career, she was a radio reporter in the city of Salekhard, and also wrote screenplays. Together with her husband, Markku Lehmuskallio, she has directed films about the Nenets, the Sami, and other aboriginal peoples from around the world. Of the movie Matkalla, completed in 2007, Lapsui says:—
"This movie has a special meaning to me. In it, I present my own view of the Nenets religion and the afterlife."

Awards