Newsletter 
The second edition of Septentrionales, a traveling and eco-conscious artistic exploration residency, has come to an end, leaving behind an intense and inspiring journey. The program took its laureate, Madalena Valencia— an American filmmaker living in France since the age of twelve —on a creative journey through Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
Across 17 stops in the Nordic countries, the residency nurtured the writing of her feature film Things That Fall, strictly rooted in her childhood memories of the region.
Reconciling childhood memories with reality
As the daughter of a family of traveling circus performers, Madalena spent several years of her childhood in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. These experiences form the foundation of her film project, which focuses on the relationship between a young girl and her mother, a human cannonball, in a traveling circus in Lapland.
Having lived in France since her preadolescence, the filmmaker felt a strong need to revisit these formative places and see them through adult’s eyes. Some locations, once explored with her family, were now deserted; former companions from her childhood had taken on leadership roles within the company. The journey was therefore not only geographical: it opened a temporal window that shaped both the writing of the film and the artist herself.
“In my memory, the circus grounds were in the grass, perched on a hill, with an iron slide that went down to a playground by the river. I went there, and the real grounds were completely flat, muddy, without a slide, under a highway… but still near the river.
-Madalena, September 14, 2025, Rovaniemi, Finland. Travel Diary.
Deepening of the artistic work
Beyond the confrontation between memory and reality, the encounters made during the journey were crucial in shaping the awardee’s project.
In Samstund, Norway, a theater hosting numerous international artists gave her the opportunity to discover the work of Iranian artist Sayeh Sirvani. The life-sized, deformed puppets attached to the performer on stage resonated deeply with Madalena’s reflections on the representation of the body—particularly the female body—on stage. They echoed the themes of suffering, constraint, and liberation that run throughout her film, which focuses on a human cannonball and her daughter at the threshold of adolescence.
Professional encounters intertwined with more everyday moments: dinners at local homes, visits to cultural sites, or trips to social spaces such as public swimming pools—unexpected places where the world of the circus intersects with that of the cities hosting it.
Future
“I knew that this residency was essential to the writing of my film, that it was important to me on several levels, but I think that I had not fully measured my relationship with some of these Nordic countries, and how much traveling through them again would be an intimate experience, which is sometimes beyond me, and which I still cannot fully understand myself.”
-Madalena, September 29, 2025, Stockholm, Sweden. Travel Diary.
According to the artist, the residency nourished her work while also fostering new connections within the local artistic scene. Particularly nourishing were the exchanges made with professionals who shared Madalena’s artistic concerns, including a French circus producer based in Stockholm, an artists’ collective in Skagen, Denmark, and a Finnish filmmaker she met at the Helsinki International Film Festival, open to collaborations. These exchanges, combined with daily interactions with local residents, also deepened her understanding of the Nordic countries, particularly Lapland, the central setting of her film.
The Residency
Septentrionales is a program of the French Institutes of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. It is supported by the Fabrique des Résidences of the Institut Français. For more information about the program, visit https://septentrionales.com/ .