Born in Oslo in 1988, Marja Bål Nango was brought up in a family of Sami reindeer herders in the village of Skibotn in Troms County Municipality in the far north of Norway. She was trained in filmmaking at the Nordland kunst- og filmfagskole (Northland Art and Film School) in Kabelvåg and at the Film and Television School in Lillehammer.[3][5] While still studying, in 2011 she directed De abstrakte, a short film which was shown at the Cinematek in Oslo. In 2012, thanks to a three-year grant from the Sami Cultural Council (Samisk Kunstnerråd], she was able to continue her education, creating Før hun kom, etter han dro (2012) which won an award at the imgineNATIVE festival in Toronto the following year.[1]
In 2014, she directed Halvt ditt, halvt datt (Half of This and Half of That) on the multicultural problems experienced by the Samis.[6][7] O.M.G. – Oh máigon girl (2015) was shown at the Tromsø Festival where it won the Rookie Award[8] and went on to be included in the Nord-program films shown in St Petersburg and Moscow. In 2018, Nango was one of 12 filmmakers selected to take part in UP, a development programme for female filmmakers aimed at achieving better balance between male and female participants in Norwegian films.[1]
At the 2019 Tromsø International Film Festival, she won the best debut award for Njuokčamat (The Tongues), a 15-minute drama about the experiences of a Sami woman who was raped while out in a snowstorm.[3][4]
