A visit to any major museum will see artefacts from various cultures on display. At first glance, they may seem a harmless historical throwback – an educational display to give an insight into some far-flung people.

People and places may have a bond, but their historical artefacts are also an intrinsic part of who they are. Without their backstory and cultural heritage what are these artefacts, apart from mere historic colonial tourist trophies?  The return of cultural artefacts to their traditional homelands may currently be a hot topic for many of the world’s leading museums. Still, Suvi West and Anssi Kömi’s documentary, Máhccan  (Homecoming) is a much more personal affair.

The repatriation of thousands of artefacts belonging to the Sámi community from the National Museum of Finland to the Sámi Museum is a catalyst for a wider journey across Europe in search of Sámi heritage. These aren’t just items on public display, many sit nearly forgotten in museum storerooms, often mislabelled and more importantly missing the cultural significance of each item.

What may just appear to be a colourful hat to one person holds a much deeper, spiritual, significance to the Sámi people.

This is more than a documentary story of store cupboards and museum conservators, though; it’s a mesmerising journey through the self, who we are, and the vital importance of sharing our past with current generations.

In the case of the Sámi people, it’s a past that has been full of repression, a repression that has actually been repeated and continued in many museum collections. Past curators are seen as little more than trophy hunters, collecting items for storage in a frenzy, stripping them of their cultural significance.

A classic example of this is the Museum of European Culture in Berlin, where we follow modern curators preparing items for return to the Sámi Museum. While the process of cataloguing and rediscovering often forgotten items is fascinating, what really brings this documentary to life is the frequently moving reconciliation that seems these previously inanimate objects imbued with a new life as the Sámi rediscover their past stories.

Stories are an integral part of Sámi culture and a key theme in Homecoming is how these objects have been robbed of their stories. As they reconnect with the community they belong to both object and story are renewed, ancestry passing down knowledge to the current generation.

While Homecoming draws a light touch on Sámi repression (see our recent review of J’Vida for a more in-depth look at that subject) but it does still hold the power to shock, with two items in particular causing a chill in viewers.

In Berlin, researchers show photos from the 1890s showing Sámi people exhibited as zoo animals for spectators  – a chilling precursor of Nazi persecution and their  obsession with ‘sub-human’ Untermensch.

Later we see a number of hollows, the site of former Sámi graves that have been dug up, the skeletons and skulls sold to research to carry out racial research to try and prove the Sámi people were an inferior race. While we see the reinternment of some of these remains, a footnote at the end of the film explains thousands of Sámi ancestors still lie in research establishments worldwide.

Ancestors are the unseen characters here, the link between past and present. The past also exerts a huge expectation on the present. While modern Sámi wish to preserve their past, the feeling of how to live in modern Finland while also being part of the Sampi, the traditional Sámi homeland, is a constant balancing act. Working modern jobs while also being attuned to nature and the seasonality of traditional Sámi life requires a new way of thinking.

There’s melancholy here but also hope, the destructive past beginning to be rebuilt as these important cultural links are restored to their rightful place. This may be a tale of Sámi homecoming, but the theme of who owns cultural antiquities and their true significance is a universal theme that resonates widely.

Subtle in its delivery, Homecoming packs an unsuspecting emotional punch.

Máhccan  (Homecoming), Written by Suvi West and directed by Suvi West and Anssi Kömi is showing as part of the Docs Ireland Festival on Wednesday June 19.