Discoveries from Finland World Cinema

Laura is a Skolt Sámi woman who grew up outside the Sámi region. Through the quadrille dance, she reaches out to her unknown cultural heritage.

A man opens up about his fears in a long-overdue therapy session, only to learn there is something deeply more sinister to be afraid of.

Nationwide panic spreads as a deadly fog rises. Hannele is safe in her car, but her friend is stuck outside. What will she do?

Baby Girl, 30, a poet with a bachelor's degree in arts, is anguished because of her relationship with Pirkka, a relatively smart, young man. Baby Girl's parents, Eila and Rampe, do their best to become friends with Pirkka and his elegant mother. Through coincidence and error Eila occupies her summerhouse neighbors' empty luxury villa. When Pirkka's mother drops by, Eila lies that she and Rampe own the fancy house. The showing off and lying escalate when Eila's mother and sister show up. The real owners of the house, an upper-class couple, Thomas and Monica, are driven away to Eila and Rampe's modest cottage.

In the 1920s, two names dominated the world's long-distance running rankings. Paavo Nurmi was a legend in his own lifetime, but Ville Ritola is remembered by only a few. These biggest rivals to each other were different in almost every way, but they both shared a passion for winning.

Juuso, Late, and Pyry return from military service to their small village in the Finnish countryside. Finding work is difficult there, so Juuso decides to take a job on a Norwegian oil drilling platform. Late could start working on his family's chicken farm but wants to break free from his father who has a new wife. Looking for work in Gothenburg, Sweden, he only runs into more problems and is deported back to Finland. Pyry would like to take over his late father's farm but family quarrels over the estate make him quit his agricultural studies and, together with drifter Late, take a job in a steel mill in southern Finland.

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ángel Flores, a promising Spanish actor returns to Spain to fulfill the last dying wish of his theatre master Miguel Lama. Ten years earlier, as a result of his personal tragedy, Ángel had escaped to Mexico where he had become a TV soap star. Miguel Lama’s last wish for Ángel is to travel to a remote monastery up in the mountains of Northern Spain and there to read each page of Dostoyevsky’s thousand-page-novel The Brothers Karamazov three times, then to come to his graveside in the monastery cemetery every night to tell him about the progress made in reading the novel. This mysterious experience reveals the secret of Ángel’s tragedy and helps him understand the role of reading in healing inner personal traumas. Ángel also learns that no dictator in the East, West, South or North who destroys his own people and neighbors will be able to eliminate the importance of authentic literature as the cornerstone of humanity.

A lonely woman finds an abandoned baby by her apartment house’s garbage bin, and decides to take the baby home with her.

A fable about a goblin and a fairy that become fast friends.

Nine Ways to Approach Helsinki, shot by Pirjo Honkasalo and Eero Salmenhaara, is a documentary on the capital of Finland.

Everything is just perfect, and then, boom!

After ending up in an orphanage, Olavi sets out to find his mother. While playing the violin on the street, his exceptional talent catches the attention of a music school professor, who takes him under his wing.

Unexpected adventures and incidents in the life of model and cashier Noora Lehtinen.

A story of a doomed young love in a small narrow-minded town.

Japanese Butoh artist Ken Mai has chosen a modest life for the sake of art. He is also the father to two small girls, and about to divorce. Skeleton Dance explores themes of life and death through improvisation and association, just like Butoh dance does.

Lasse Pöysti's directorial debut film. And Helena Plays On (1951) is based on Aino Räsänen's second novel of the same name in the Helena series. When the Winter War breaks out, Arttu (Jussi Jurkka), the son of Helena (Irma Seikkula) and Jari Junkkeri (Erkki Viljos), go to the front. Arttu proposes to his girlfriend Elina (Leena Häkinen), but the world events come in between. When he is not heard of at the end of the war, the relatives begin to believe that Arttu is dead - everybody else but not Helena.

A beginner short film dealing with loneliness and school, in a negative way.

As the Internet finally arrives in tiny Bhutan, documentarian Thomas Balmès is there to witness its transformative impact on a young Buddhist monk whose initial trepidation gives way to profound engagement with the technology.

An unconscious teenage girl is found on the street with a pistol in her hand. The girl remains silent until a friendly doctor gets her to open up about her life and the reasons she has found herself in her current situation.

A nuanced documentary that follows a year in the life of legendary Helsinki all-boys choir Cantores Minores, from rehearsals to performances and behind the scenes.

In a barren, snowy Lapland landscape a man in a reindeer sled escorts a shaman's corpse to its final resting place. In the pale moonlight the fear is starting to take over, since something has awakened the shaman.

Far in the future, in a place that was once called Finland, there lives a people whose history is shrouded in mystery. A mythical song describes the past, but it is not enough for the Young One. Fortunately, there is a sect in nearby fen that preserves ancient knowledge.

A new year’s party takes an unexpected turn when Enni runs into her ex-girlfriend Aliisa. Old feelings are quick to resurface even though Aliisa is engaged to another woman. Enni finds herself longing for the relationship she has already lost and soon gets caught up in the consequences of not letting go of the past.

Jussi is on the verge of burnout seeks new energy through a very special form of self-help therapy. Jussi’s young and athletic supervisor Aleksi takes Jussi to a remote bog and instructs him on a series of exercises meant to conjure up their ‘primitive side’.

Katri Vesa, a young woman from Helsinki, has fallen in love with Erkki Kovalinna, an ambitious young official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is prepared to do anything to win his affection. At her friend's suggestion, Katri leaves the city to make Erkki miss her and finds her life's mission in the countryside in Kari Tuulos, a scientist who lost his sight in an explosion.

A group of women working in an unemployment office in a small Finnish town have started to give out sex to outcast young men in order to prevent future school shootings in Finland. Mirja (35) tries to hide, that after spending a night with unemployed Marko (23), she has fallen in love. Saving Finland is at stake.

School audition in the 80's. Steve has been training very hard, but singing in front of an audience is not easy. It might be easier to behind the curtain.

Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, the long-time president of the Republic of Finland, is scheduled to visit Alli’s Bar on his way to northern Finland. He is blindly worshiped and the nearer the visit draws, the more envy, competition and dirty tricks come to bear in this small town setting. No one is spared the brutality!

This film follows the human fates of a 150-year-old gold miner community living in the distant Lapland wilderness beyond telephone networks. Their peaceful life comes to an end when a new law forces them to abandon their way of living. Depicted through painting-like visual expression, this warm, bittersweet, and universal story tells about the only permanent thing there is: change.

Juhani goes to meet his new girlfriend. Juhani soon realizes that he is trapped in a woman's apartment, as her prisoner.

Arvo Raitamo, a surgeon from Helsinki, is focused on his career. At home, his wife, who suffers from loneliness with their young son, is kept company by Rolf Brenner, an engineer known as a ladies' man. When the family's son dies in an accident, Arvo, broken with grief, flees to the wilderness of Lapland, where he collapses in the snow. Arvo is saved by the folk healer Aslak and his niece Maaret. Maaret falls in love with Arvo, but Arvo cannot escape his past for long.

Northern small town girl, 18 year-old Henna is literally blinded by envy after stalking Silja, a girl moving from South and who seems to get everything Hanna dreams of. Diva of Finland is a story about rivalry between young women and getting over it.

A new hero is born. By day, Ly Canthrope is gunning down scum in the streets of Finland. But by night, he's the Werewolf with Uzi, motherfucker!

A journey through time to our futuristic recent past. A documentary film about the rise and fall of a Finnish plastic house. A story about the utopia of the "space age" that almost came true. The Futuro house was completed in 1968. It was believed that humanity was on the threshold of a new era, when technology would be able to solve all conceivable problems. Made entirely of plastic, Futuro was both a reflection of its time and a utopian vision of the "future state of affairs."

Based on a novel by Aleksis Kivi. Follows the story of seven brothers of Jukola in 19th century Finland.

A story about the conflicting emotions of love and hate, duty and selfishness in the human mind.

A romantic comedy about 30-year-old Leo and a 40-year-old, pregnant single mother of three, Maarit.

Bank manager wants to hire younger employees. Fired cashier decides to teach him a lesson.

The Finnish rap film Punasii päin draws inspiration from street art, particularly the Stop Graffiti project, which sees the film's main characters, graffiti artists Henri and Joonas, become uneducated and unemployed, burdened with disproportionate debt as punishment for painting on walls. Helsinki, the last bastion of prohibition, offers the marginalized a job as a drug dealer. The film features a significant number of Finnish rap artists and their provocative underground songs.

It is winter in the mid-1970s in Tornio, a village near the northern border between Finland and Sweden. Esko is a boy with a lot of problems. He has succeeded in getting on the wrong side of his gang.

A quiet and clumsy Eki works at the shipyard and wants to be like his masculine and outspoken co-workers. To become a real man, he needs some tattoos. A real ones.

Maria Toikka is called to testify in a trial in which her husband Ville is charged. The assurances show the events that led to the trial from the previous fall, when Patron Oppman begins to approach Maria, offering her money in return for services.

Young farmer Paavo's wife dies in childbirth, and their baby soon after. The wife's family claim back the dowry she brought to their marriage, but Paavo has already used most of it for improvements at the farm. Paavo's life starts going downhill as he resorts to drinking.

The main characters of the film are two small boys who share the throne of Karmapa, the highest office of one of Tibetan Buddhism's main sects and the third in line after the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. As with the Dalai Lama, Karmapa is the same soul which reincarnates in each successor to the office, who is identified by omens, portents and other signs. The Karmapa line actually pre-dates the Dalai Lama's, and their respective importance has alternated in the course of history with either the Karmapa or Dalai Lama holding precedence. Only one of the current Karmapas lives in Tibet, who is recognized by the Dalai Lama but controlled by the Chinese government for political ends. The second Karmapa lives in New Delhi, India and was selected by a Tibetan group in exile. The film was shot in India, Nepal and Tibet and features the Dalai Lama as narrator, providing an incisive spiritual and political view of occupied Tibet.

When two best friends Jill and Joy find a huge sum of money on the street on the first day of the summer holiday, they decide to buy a house from the mysterious Mrs. Rosebud. It’s a real dream house: measured and equipped exactly for two little seven-year-old girls’ requirements. Based on a beloved children’s book, Jill and Joy is a story of a dream summer without parents or boundaries. Anything can and will happen as reality and fantasy magically intertwine.

A wetland archaeologist tracks groundwater levels in a drained swamp. In a quiet village, the emergency call center receives reports of a drifting island. This kaleidoscopic tale takes us on a journey across time and place, exploring the tense relationship between humans and wetlands from surprising perspectives that blend science and oral folklore.

Juhani Haavisto returns to his childhood home from the seas and is confronted by his wheelchair-bound, demented father Eino and the traumas of sexual abuse and violence he experienced as a child.

In the late 19th century at Längelmäki two men kill a mailman and rob all the money he carried. Based on actual events.

Meri wants to believe that everything is just like before – a night with friends, laughter, wine, and the familiar bond. She carefully arranges her home, covering the traces of the night before, but beneath the surface, something lingers that she refuses to face.

Aava has but one wish: to get a dog. Meanwhile, her parents' marriage is falling apart.

It’s the past that defines you, Kari tells his therapy group. And indeed, after serving a lengthy prison sentence, he wants to become a better person. However, his former life as a ruthless debt collector catches up with him in a nightmarish way.

A journalist is reporting on prostitutes active in the harbor area. He falls in love with the beautiful and different Vuokko.

In 2017 Finland celebrates 100 years of independence. The famous philosopher Bruno is curing his writers' block in Lapland, when he gets an invitation to the President's Grand Ball in Helsinki. The railway systems are frozen and he misses the only plane, but the Laplander Jallu agrees to drive him 1200 km (745 miles) south.

Pave, Hese, Timppa, and Viiksi have ended up in Hell, where the heat makes them feel as comfortable as in a sauna. The bosses there don't like this, so they send the boys on vacation to their home country, Finland. They are given a briefcase full of money to live a life of luxury. The only condition is that they are not allowed to do honest work, and to make matters worse, they are told that alcohol will not go to their heads.

China, Laos and Cambodia are building more and more dams on Mekong river. Electric companies collect the profits, but river's ecosystems are losing and people are losing their livelihood.

Power of the People is a touching film that gives voice to poet Laura Eklund Nhaga, who is searching for the right way for her to have an impact. The possibilities and impossibilities of activism are countless, and none are indisputably more effective than the rest. But, she wonders, if one’s very existence as part of Western hegemony is in itself political, can activism truly be a choice, or is it simply the only way to be?

Whilst most young women in her home town of Zambia were busy planning weddings, Esther Phiri had other ideas: to stay single, be a professional boxer and complete the high school education that she abandoned when her family fell on hard times. Her quick and meteoric rise to an undefeated world champion took not only the boxing world by surprise, but sent emotions fever pitch. But whilst the global press rushed to portray her as a strong and confident woman tagged »Zambia’s Million Dollar Baby», in private Esther slowly crumbled under the weight of her success. Adulation and celebrity had increased, but so had criticism, envy and expectations from her family and fans. In the pursuit of independence from a husband, her global success had made her a symbol of hope and empowerment, and a provider for her family and friends whose demands increased as Esther’s fortune grew.

The summer ahead is long and hot but the burden of shame from the past is haunting Joonas, 24, and driving him to solitude. A sudden phone call changes the direction of his summer and brings Joonas to an old manor for a summer job, forcing him to open up to his new workmates and to face his shame. Joonas works hard under the burning sun, driven by his past mistakes, whilst the others lounge under the calming shade of trees. On the last day the group loses track of time and misses the last bus home. They are left at the old manor and a magical midsummer night begins.

Second Lane is a story about drug addiction, living with it and fighting it. It is a documentary about people who use intravenous drugs and the professionals and peers working with those people. What happens when ‘Vinkki’, a social and healthcare counselling centre in Helsinki, closes its doors due to a lost contract.