“If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it’s useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket… then I am a human being after all.” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote.

Inspired by her world view and other feminist thinkers, filmmaker Irene Kaltenborn invites us on a richly philosophical og sensory journey of (re)discovery in the deep Finnish forests. Taking the creation myth of the Finnish and Karelian national epic, The Kalevala, as a starting point—where the world emerges not through conquest but through song and organic becoming— “The MotherAge” reflects on alternative origins for human culture.

Informed by Le Guin’s reimagining of power and cooperation, the film challenges the dominantnarrative that the knife was the first tool made by humans. Stone endures, while organic materials decay, but might there exist a parallel history of development, rooted not in domination and competition, but in care, coexistence, and a more reciprocal relationship with the living world?