Amanda Kernell

Amanda Kernell (; born 9 September 1986) is a Swedish, Southern Sami director and screenwriter. She is best known for the movie Sami Blood.

Early life and education Amanda Kernell was born on 9 September 1986 in Umeå. Her mother is Swedish, but through her father, she developed roots in Sami culture. Kernell experienced two very different cultures growing up with divorced parents with her mother being Swedish and her father being Sami. Her grandparents were nomadic reindeer herding families and only spoke Sami. They were only assimilated into the Swedish society once they went to residential schools in Sweden.

In her early teens, she devoted herself to acting and directing within the municipal theater.

Kernell studied writing for the stage and audio visual media at Biskops-Arno, where she also completed the Filpool Nord course "Screenwriting for low-budget feature films". Beginning in 2009, Kernell attended the National Film school of Denmark, being one of the six students they bring in every two years.

Career Kernell worked as a film educator in Västerbotten County. The story was about a daughter who was trying to connect with her closed off mother. Amanda Kernell's filmographic career began in 2006 when she started directing shorts for the production company The Director & Fabrikorn, including The Holiday Sister, best short at the 2009 BUFF Children and Young Adult Film Festival and To Share Everything which received the 1km Film Award.

Her directorial debut film was the short film Our Disco (Våra discon).

Her short film Northern Great Mountain (Stoerre Vaerie), premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and was later incorporated into her feature film debut Sami Blood, which premiered at the 2016 Venice International Film Festival.

Charter is her second feature film. Kernell is scriptwriter for most of her films.

Style and themes Kernell states that "In my films, I always deal with topics such as forgiveness, responsibility, and betrayal." She tends to use close up shots and put a lot of the emphasis of the story on the actors. She prefers a "minimalistic form when shooting films, with camerawork that gets up close to characters and avoid overloading the movie with the decor or setting."

Personal life Kernell was living in Copenhagen, 2016: Europa Cinemas Label for best European film, Venice Film Festival 2016: Special Jury Prize, Tokyo International Film Festival 2018: Swedish UN Federation's award for human rights 2021: Guldbagge Award for Best Director