When she's not working as an actress or DJing at a Saami language radio station in Helsinki, Anni-Kristiina Juuso is a reindeer farmer in her native Lapland. "Yes, like my character in the film. So in many ways, I was totally in my element!" So laughs the 27-year old Juuso, who is one of few Lapp women to work in the media and the first to appear in a Russian movie. "There's a lot of bad history between Finland and Russia and even now, it's hard to look upon Russia with total friendliness. But this is not a political movie. It's a movie about people, and about stripping away the layers of politics and history in order to see people as they are. I hoped audiences would get that message."
It seems as though the screenplay of "Kukushka" was penned with her personality as a starting point, but she claims that is not the case.
"First of all, the screenplay was all in Russian so I had no idea what it was about!"