The women baring all in Smoke Sauna Sisterhood film

 
Female friends have long gathered together to share life stories and laughs, but they generally keep their clothes on.
In the documentary film Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, however, the women are naked, BBC reports.
Shot over seven years in Estonia, the film sees a group of women strip off for a four-hour session of sweating and soul-bearing, before plunging into an icy lake.

The camera is remarkably close-up, You see every bead of sweat and fold of skin, as the women divulge their innermost thoughts and memories.
They are all completely at ease with each other.

We see them rub salt into their skin, slap each other on the back with leafy twigs and pour water onto scalding bodies, in the heat of the sauna.
In summer, we also see the women squatting not far from each other to go to the toilet in the woods, while a dog runs between them.
Some women's faces can be seen during filming, while others preferred to remain anonymous.

The camera lens remains remarkably clear in the depths of the sauna, given the room is full of smoke and steam.
"It's a safe space where all your emotions can be shared and heard," director Anna Hints says about her film, which won a directing award at January's Sundance Film Festival.

She learned to love the ritual of the hot, smoky log cabin as a child, growing up in eastern Estonia. It is something to be treasured, having been added to Unesco's list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

For Hints, the sauna is about the deep emotional connection between women, and the release of toxins - both physical and emotional.
She recalls the moment when she became hooked on the age-old tradition, after witnessing her grandmother purging some painful emotions.
"There was one very significant moment is when I was 11," she says.

She and the female members of her family had gathered to have a sauna together.
"My grandfather had died and his body was in the house. It was one day before funeral.
"And there, in the sauna, my granny revealed my grandfather had actually betrayed her with another woman.
"She said how difficult it was... and she released all the emotions connected to that. It took hours.
"And then we went out - and there was peace."

This is what we see over and over in the film, as the seasons change and the women keep returning to their "safe space".
They talk about their relationships with their mothers, laugh about sex, and discuss how they feel about their bodies.
One woman talks about the moment she came out as gay to her parents, while another expresses how it felt growing up in a culture that favoured boys.
When something distressing comes up - there are some no holds-barred conversations about sexual assault and cancer - the women listen intently, absorbing all that is said.

Emotions pour out, like the constantly flowing water of the sauna.
The women sing and repeatedly chant their support: "Take the pain away,".
Then we see them plunge afterwards into the icy pool dug into a frozen lake outside.
It looks painful as they pad over the ice, naked except for socks, but they all look rejuvenated afterwards.