Discoveries from Finland World Cinema

A compilation of excerpts from old Helsinki-themed documentaries and new material.

Observational documentary recording everyday life in Finland in 1983.

An old woman returns to her childhood home to recollect memories.

An unsuspecting servant faces unforeseen challenges in upstairs and downstairs.

A film about how language, be it film, art or written language, creates in itself a system where separation precedes contact.

An experimental movie composed of Erkki Karu's silent film Finland (1922) and Esa Kerttula's photos taken in 2020.

A boy goes crazy after watching hours of horror movies and starts to kill people.

At the Factory, laughter is produced, canned and shipped into the world in precisely measured, temperate doses. It lacks something, though: freedom and authenticity. One woman is unable to laugh according to the norms. She accidentally releases a reckless laughter breaking all the Factory rules. Soon realizes she is leading a revolution for freedom and joy, against pomposity.

Woody observation case in Helsinki through early 1950s newsreel footage. Four locations in shots, accompanied by four tape loops and four locked-groove vinyls.

Taneli had the highest grades of his high school class. His classmates thought he will be something. Nowadays Taneli works as a kiosk clerk. After 10 years since high school, Taneli relunctantly attends a high school reunion ready to confront people he hasn't seen since his graduation.

Summer night, fraying country idyll, motorcycle gang and a murder.

Based upon the popular folk song, the film tells the story of two men who want to test the new Sheriff, who has new policies to put in place.

Documentary compilation of Finnish Defence Forces Newsreels keeping the people up-to-date with the latest about the war.

A strange godlike creature tirelessly rolls a giant dung ball across a field. In a café, a human revels in their role as the 'crown of creation.' Things get a bit out of hand. Elsewhere, in a neuro-weird future, the Microplastic Clothes Moth and the Moth-being reshape their environment through very different processes.

Mika Waltari's novels, short stories, plays or screenplays are the basis for 33 Finnish films. Director Matti Kassila introduces Waltari's role in films.

Three friends celebrate midsummer together in a remote house. The next morning one of them is missing. Lila and Siiri recount their different takes on last night's events, trying to figure out where Riina could be. Siiri keeps trying to tell Lila something she is not willing hear.

Helena, the main character of the film, grew up in a small town on the west coast of Finland in the 1960s and 70s, together with the emerging welfare in Finland. Her parents lived through the Second World War; her father was on the frontline, and her mother in her family home, burdened with helping to maintain the family. Helena’s family, the surrounding society and the era of her childhood profoundly shaped her experience. The landscapes of her childhood still live vividly in her mind.

A video work with the yolk Dolat by Ánnámáret, from her album “Nieguid duovdagat”. In the video, embers and fire particles twirl in the air, transforming and dancing and swirling in the dark.

Minna is taking driving lessons. The teacher starts to behave inappropriately.

Ukonvaaja - The Hammer of Ukko - is a documentary film that focuses on ancient Finnish folklore and mythology.

Two men and a fish runs through the country.

A documentary from Erkki Karu, one of the earliest pioneers of Finnish cinema: This government-produced propaganda film introduces the nature, sports, military, agriculture and capital of Finland.

A violent psychopath stalks young men and takes photographs of their dead bodies.

8000: An Art Odyssey (Anssi Kasitonnin maailma) is a documentary about the Finnish Ars Fennica awarded artist Anssi 8000. Anssi does everything his own way, and preferably with his own hands. The films follows Anssi as he prepares for the biggest exhibition of his life at Kunsthalle Helsinki, films a French short film with dreams of an Oscar award and develops a skate toy with a company based in Hong Kong. It is a warm and humorous story about passion, creativity – and how sometimes, doing things the wrong way is the right way.

A young woman dealing with her childhood's trauma in the form of a folktale. She always runs away from a big black wolf untill she reminds of her grandmother's advice.

it pulsates.

Atlas spins his arm beneath a wind turbine each day, part of a village ritual as old as the wind itself. When fire destroys his turbine — and the only life he knows — he must find a direction that isn't round.

After moving out on his own, a young man experiences loneliness and boredom.

Nissim wants to mend his relationship with his son and won't let small obstacles like his own death stand in his way.

On his way to the next village, a peasant finds out that he has mischievous company.

One early morning the Eritrean nurse and human-rights activist Adal Neguse woke up in his home in Stockholm with an uncanny feeling. He listened to the news and heard about a disaster on the Mediterranean. A boat with 369 Eritrean refugees had caught fire and sank outside Lampedusa. Adal knew his brother was waiting for smugglers to bring him over to Europe. He got a strong feeling his brother was onboard this particular boat and went to Lampedusa to look for him. In the film, four survivors tell about the disaster from their individual perspective, they have four separate stories about what happened.

The Gypsies have lived in Finland for hundreds of years and they form a significant minority in country. Nevertheless, their every day life is not very well known by the majority and few people understand the issues young Gypsies struggle with.

The hotel owned by widow Ida Hentola is full of artists who can't pay their bills. The energetic manager isn't too happy about her daughter Mirjami and painter Akseli Niemelä getting all lovey-dovey. Misunderstandings caused by a lottery ticket mess up the hotel.

Anni loves the WTC towers with a fiery passion. She lives in a relationship with them and they love her back.

Anja has been waiting for thirty years for this day to arrive – for the day when her brother will die. She herself is already dead. She was twelve at the time. She and her brother were playing a game that went too far and then it happened. Anja has lived in limbo ever since; her job is to help the people of her small town who have just lost their lives to find their way to the other side. She shows them they are not alone. Sometimes the right music can help. Or a little dance – which cannot be seen by the living – where the accident happened. Today, at home on the couch in front of the television, fate takes its course for her brother. He struggles to drag himself upstairs to Anja's old room where he dies. That is where Anja died too. She is happy to see him again; he can hardly bear it. But she has something to say to him. And a song for him. A song about a country where there is no such thing as fear.

Sensory deprivation is a state in which all sensory stimuli are minimized. It doesn't just silence the world. It silences what we tell ourselves. What are you, when there is nothing left to distract you?

A documentary film about Finland commissioned by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and produced by Suomi-Filmi Oy.

In the summer of 2021, the Finnish men's national football team played in the World Cup for the first time. Two of Finland's matches were played in St Petersburg, which was simultaneously ravaged by a virulent new variant of Covid19 disease. Despite the advice from the government to stay at home, thousands of fans made the trip to the city. Covid Cowboys documentary tells the story of these supporters and the aftermath of what happened, when on one side of the scale were the historic dream of generations and the health of themselves and their loved ones in the other.

Arvid falls in love with cabaret singer Lussie and, much to his mother's dismay, marries this adventurous woman. Soon after the wedding, Lussie begins an affair with Russian lieutenant Arnold, which ultimately leads to tragic events.

The short documentary Holiday Days on Teno, wonderfully filmed by the Grand Old Man of Lapland films, Aimo Jäderholm (b. 1916), is a dream come true for every fly fisherman and salmon hunter. The film's salmon adventure is based on "Palto Rantteella" in Karigasniemi in late July 1948. From there, the fishing guests, "the stout police chief of Kuopio and other southern crows", set off to catch salmon. Aleksanteri, a skolt from Petsamo, was the rower, and "it was already good enough for others to row, when he himself had pulled a 23-kilogram körilä and much more besides".

Tensions between a couple surface during a dinner party.

The film captures a moment about to begin. An actor prepares for a shoot while the crew waits. Instead of moving forward, the actor is overwhelmed by endless options. The film reveals a physical state where preparation transforms into an infinite lapse of time, revealing the complexity of life's paths and the intricacies of the body and mind.

A satirical comedy documentary about a filmmaker in his forties. The documentary takes an interesting turn when the filmmaker, doubting his own artistry, ends up introducing the documentary filmmaker to a performance artist living in a pile of sawdust, who he then proceeds to mistreat in front of the camera.

A war orphan invokes malicious animal spirits to take revenge on his murderous uncle. Inspired by The Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.

Once a week in a hotel room a girl and a boy share a strange but intimate moment. Only this time she finds herself crossing a line, that has never been crossed before.