Jul 14: Ofelas / Pathfinder (1987) dir. Nils Gaup

I went to see this film in London when it first came out. It was one of the only places that it was being shown, at the Odeon in Leicester Square. It was very expensive compared to the cinema in Rotherham, but memorable for all that. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

The film is set in the Arctic amongst the Sami people. It is a good vs. evil story, with the baddies dressed in black. There is mystery and a lot of archery going on with arrows thudding into bodies.

The film makers faced a lot of challenges due to the conditions in which the film was made, with extreme temperatures.

The music is excellent and a piece from it was later used in a Mike Oldfield album - 'The Songs of Distant Earth'.

“Ofelas” told the tale of a young boy who witnessed the slaughter of his family around 1000 AD, in Northern Scandinavia, and sought vengeance upon his family’s murderers. He is eventually held captive by this warlike tribe and forced to lead them to the others.

The boy plots to destroy them before they even reach the other camp.