Discoveries from Finland World Cinema

The film tells the story of the women of Larsvik Manor, especially the young lady of the house Barbi during World War II.

A naked man stands on a mountain. He leans into the wind and flaps.

A daughter writes a letter for her father, who she lost after he was sentenced on charges of blasphemy.

Music document about finnish singer songwriter Jukka Karjalainen better known as J. Karjalainen.

Documentary about the Finnish children who were evacuated to Sweden during World War II.

Three guys share their thoughts and surviving methods in a strange but warm-hearted forest trip.

Paavo Mäkinen's alcoholism is hard on the whole family. His wife Terttu falls into depression and is hospitalized. Their children Marja, Tapsa, and Sanna each show symptoms in their own way: leaving home, drinking, skipping school. Will Paavo manage to stop drinking for the sake of his family?

Little Esa is a talented floor ball player who is worshiped by his father. After a well-played game, Esa accidentally bumps into Elvis. The singer instantly becomes Esa's one and only idol.

People go missing all the time, but no one just disappears. This is a story of one who got lost.

In spring 1940, a soldier is returning from the Finnish Winter War only to face the Repo man. A struggle against society, nightmares and the temptations of alcohol ensues while he strives to save his farm and marriage.

Sirkka feels she's doing the right thing when she kills her cruel stepfather. But there is a witness to the murder, the musician Eino. However, he helps Sirkka get rid of the dead body. Suspected by the police for the murder Sirkka flees abroad.

Portrait of a national icon: iskelmä or popular schlager legend Olavi Virta (1915–1972), as an old, lost and lonely man. When the film was screened for the first time, people all over Finland went ballistic – they couldn't take the sad sight of their tango's greatest voice, the incarnation of postwar wealth and glory in ruins.

A small gas station is held in the grip of a sinister trio of men until a rugged stranger, acting as the protector of truckers, appears on the scene. He puts the villains in order. At the same time, a legend of wonder is born, and the gas station begins to attract the crippled and burdened, awaiting healing

Annastiina Kankaanrinta is the politician who started lex70 - the law limits Finnish citizenship to 70 years, which makes the 70th anniversary of the citizens' 70th birthday effectively a public euthanasia day. Now Annastiina is preparing for her own death day. The death celebrations have been carefully prepared, but as the final frontier looms, the surface of a perfect life begins to crack.

Coal miner Esaias Coolman returns to Finland from his working years in America.

A documentary about three of Finland's major cities: Turku, Tampere, and Helsinki, showcasing each city's history, geography, and culture.

Amazing adventures of a Finn in Estonia. A Finn in search of wife.

The two eldest brothers of the Rummukainen family have come to conclusion, that their younger brother is indeed insane and decide to take him to mental hospital.

Hidden in the French Pyrenees lays an esoteric spider web of myths and mysteries. The Golden Triangle consisting of the towns of Rennes-les-Château, Montsegur and Bugarach is a scene of magical battles, occult exploration and treasure hunting, where the lines of reality and fiction are constantly blurred. ZONE explores the esoteric underbelly of Old Occitania through the reminiscences and stories of local residents and spiritual seekers and exposes a hidden world where magic is a common currency.

Hamza, a foreign student in Helsinki, is considering accepting an assistant position in Australia after graduating. Since this might be his last year in Helsinki, Hamza decides to spend his vacation here while his friends travel abroad for the summer.

Sini is waiting for her husband to return from a trip and starts thinking about her past relationship with Jaska. She invites him to a party, where old feelings resurface. Afterwards, they go to an island they used to visit and confront their memories and the past of their relationship

The director of the Vaudeville Theater is looking for new performers after the former star was forced to give up her singing career. Out of numerous auditionees, singer P. Waltteri Vitikka is hired. At the same time, the janitor tries to maintain order in the theater.

Young sailor Arvi falls in love with a dance girl Kerttu in a Spanish tavern, who says that she is half-Finnish and wants to go find her real father.

Mrs. Ireene Helasuo does not want to have children and refuses to do so. She argues about this with her husband and father. Director Kustaa Helasuo considers childlessness a deficiency, and Ireene's father believes that motherhood is a woman's duty, which his daughter is not fulfilling.

April is the Cruelest of Months is a 1983 film directed by Suvi-Marja Korvenheimo, also known as Anssi Mänttäri, and the final part of the Korvenheimo trilogy. It was named after the first verse of T. S. Eliot's poem series The Waste Land. The film, shot in ten days, is a satire on the candles of Finnish culture.

The Helsinki of the 1990s, longed for by many, comes to life in Heikki Ahola's City Symphony. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, this classic montage film offers a unique glimpse into the pulsating life of the capital at all hours of the day. More than 30 young filmmakers worked on the documentary. Filmed between September 1993 and February 1995, City Symphony encounters the contrasting spirits of Helsinki – including unemployment and luxury, homeliness and internationalism. As the title suggests, music plays a central role in the film, with Tuomas Kantelinen responsible for the score. You won't find a more comprehensive journey through 1990s Helsinki than Kaupunkisinfonia. The world just before the breakthrough of the internet and the economic boom already looks very different.

TV document about the Finnish music producer Atte Blom.

Dances are ending. Last chance for women and men to find someone.

The film tells the story of a wandering barrel organ player's daily, tragic life in the back streets of the Finnish cities.

Deep beneath the streets of Italy lie the catacombs of the Montresors, filled with barrels of wine and the bones of the dead. One evening, friends Fortunado and Montresor venture below the city with promises of the rare vintage wine Amontillado. Based on the short story by Edgar Allen Poe, Fortunado and Montresor find themselves in a web of betray and revenge, changing their friendship forever.

Beirut-born Jean Bitari's warm-hearted documentary about life in a small house area in Vantaa. In the documentary, we eat and drink, dance , hang out and renovate yards. There are concerts and events for children.

The baron who owns the estate and factory does not approve of his daughters' honest but non-aristocratic and poor suitors. The older sister, Margareta, does not want to leave agronomist Mauno, and the younger sister, Helvi, does not want to leave paper master apprentice Toivo.

An intimate, two-hour documentary of Nightwish’s innermost-workings – included in their upcoming Showtime, Storytime DVD – is a story about what happens when persistence and desire pushes towards dreams. Directed by Ville Lipiäinen (30 Seconds To Mars, HIM) and shot with seventeen cameras at the Wacken Open Air Festival in front of 85,000 fans, the 110-minute live performance by Finland’s most beloved rockers Nightwish was the first of three final shows of the band’s 2013 “Imaginaerum World Tour” which consisted of 104 concerts in 34 countries and a total audience of over 1.5 million fans around the globe.

An unsettling mystery about desperation and class divisions in the age of digital capitalism.

Minimalist documentary by Rax Rinnekangas about the wooden cottage "La Cabanon" designed and built in 1952 by Swiss architect and furniture designer Le Corbusier - a refuge intended for a single person with a living space of only 3.66 x 3.66 meters. The construction followed Corbusier's maxim that architecture must adapt to the human body and not vice versa.

The screws are loose and the turbo is revved up for a wild ride! The madness begins when reporter Otto Miinalainen is conducting an interview with the dairy owner on his 50th birthday. However, the guest of honor is found dead in the butter churn. The dangerous birthday killer has struck again...

When filmmaker Mari Soppela took her children and husband to live for a year on a sacred mountain in her native Finland, she was fulfilling a lifelong dream to share the arctic wilderness of her childhood with her family. But when years later her children turn the camera onto her, she is forced to confront her motivation for filming their lives in this searching and searingly honest cinematic exploration of identity, belonging and motherhood. Filmed over the course of 27 years, Mother Land challenges us all to examine the landscapes we carry within us and the narratives we create to make sense of our lives.

Young Tirlittan gets rid of her family after being struck by lightning in her home. While looking for a new home, she meets a friendly policeman, a woman with goat, and a ringmaster with whom Tirlittan ends up performing in a circus.

Two people named Unto have reserved a session in the flotation tank at 1:00, but the system only has a reservation for one Unto. As the situation is investigated, it becomes clear that, in addition to the identical reservation, the Untos share more in common.

To avoid a forced marriage, 19-year-old Hala finds refuge across the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria at a military academy where, while learning to fight, she vows to fight to free all women.

"I am a hardcore racist, sadist and fascist. The New Testament is true, the Old Testament is not. Spirits informed me that I will be born again in my next life in the United States, then as president." - Pekka Siitoin (1944 - 2003) was an occultist and a neo-Nazi from Naantali, Finland. In his youth he studied at the Theatre Academy of Finland and was a disciple of Finland's best known clairvoyant, Aino Kassinen. In the 1970s he became a neo-Nazi and founded several organizations. He saw himself as the leader of the Finnish Nazi movement but got at most a few dozen supporters. Siitoin also wrote books about politics and occultism.

Ten groups of kids from various parts of Finland, aged between 12 and 15, improvise an episode each based on one of the Bible's Ten Commandments.

The result of a correspondence between the artists, 8mm film shot in North Karelia, and archival material. The average life expectancy of a girl born in Finland is 84.2 years—the work focuses on the statistical midpoint of the protagonist’s life, reflecting through the concept of an oceanic feeling on themes of death, fear of death, embodiment, and intergenerationality.

Development prospects for bus transport in the early 1950s. The film, directed by Harry Lewing, presents express and local bus services as well as the services of the bus stations in Helsinki, Tampere and Lahti. The film features a staged filler story: the Suomela family goes on holiday in a bus and arrives at the gate of their summer estate...

Where is Where? is an experimental film that quarters the screen in order to have four different scenes play simultaneously. It's a meditation on the Algerian war that culminates in a brutal killing.

The year is 1972. Finnish endurance running is in its golden age. The head physician of a mental hospital goes on a bike ride with a marathon runner who has been forgotten in hospital for years. But the ride doesn't follow the expected route...

Documentary about Finnish Jews during WWII and their unique position as German allies.

The last part of Juho Kuosmanen's silent film trilogy.

Two outlaws, The Lonely Rider and the Indian Tonto, have caught (at least they think they have) Speedy Gonzales, a ruthless gunfighter from the town of Njietponimaistadi. They start to travel to another town for the reward, through the desert without water and fighting against Indians. And just to find out that they have made a full circle back to origin.

By the year 2027 the shitters have conquered the earth. Humankind has one hope: the shitters are determined to stop her.

The story of a man raised in a boy's home and prison who doesn't conform to the rules and discipline of the military.

A short documentary where Helsinki in the springtime is displayed in her poetic ugliness.

Two Finnish toy manufacturers Jim King and Krakström compete for toys. King's business is far too successful and he is trying to tax fraud with the help of his chamberlain. Both toy manufacturers hire gangster chief Niitti to handle their twilight jobs, but not everything goes according to plan.

Bored with family life the husband Matti goes on a drunken journey.

Kari and Tuula's family happiness is put to the test after Kari ends up on unemployment benefits.