Discoveries from Finland World Cinema

A touching documentary directed by Holger Harrivirta (1915-86) about Finnish children, about 70,000 of whom were sent to Sweden during the war years. The film's train of war children arrives from the Karelian Isthmus in the summer of 1944, travels via Kuopio and Haparanda to Stockholm. In Haparanda, there is a sauna and a medical examination, as well as a check of the surrender papers. Another batch of Karelian war children travels via Helsinki and Vaasa to Umeå in the summer of 1944.

Young Pete's escape journey takes him through the countryside, the city and the world inside his own head. The professional relationship between his caretakers, Chief Physician Heinonen and Nurse Ilves, begins to unravel as new aspects of his treatment of a patient on the run are revealed. What kind of help would YOU want when your own psyche starts to fall apart?

In the beginning of 1990s Finland was faced with the most serious financial crisis of its history; recession. Over 400,000 unemployed persons, almost 200 000 bankruptcies and a whole national offspring of insecurity were born in a country with around 5 million in population, all within a few years. How does the childhood during depression look like from adulthood?

Lives of four youngsters living in East-Helsinki suburbs. Ali, Nedim, Shahin and Flamur are old friends, whose paths have gone different ways. Ali decides to do a radical change in his life, that will affect everyone.

Can a rooster lay eggs? Anecdotes of such miracles are known, but what is revealed behind them? What would the rooster say if we were to get a witness statement? Out of archive material, Nina Forsman has entwined an observant and playful documentary film. Tickling common sense, the work ends up asking how humans have looked at and used other species throughout history. How do we recognise what is against nature in our society so alienated from it?

A collection of rock performances interspersed with the antics of a young "Rock'n'Roll digger"

The film is a personal documentary and a growth story about ten-year-old Farah who moved to Finland from Palestine.

A bitter and moving portrait of a genius as a troubled human being trying his best to find a way through life. A documentary about a too-little-known master of world cinema Mikko Niskanen (1929-1990); an epic sketch of the typical 20th century person’s struggles and doubts. Peter von Bagh, ‘a Renaissance man’ and sensitive film adventurer, was the only person to peer inside the soul of this director and his works with great intensity and ardour.

The Paper flies away from artist Marja. She tries to tame the Paper by any means necessary, but only understanding the Paper can reveal its true nature.

Based on Edvard Radzinsky's play, the story critically examines the difficulties of a Soviet film production.

An American action star is on holiday in Finland but soon he is forced to fight against creatures from outer space.

16-year old girl has lost her grandfather. She takes her grandfather's old film camera and gets interested in photographing. During the process of getting better in her new hobby, she also learns how to see things with the new eyes.

Suddenly there is an enormous amount of time. At first everything is possible. Anything might happen. Gradually the possible becomes impossible.

Video by the skateboard brand Itä from Finland.

Three young schoolboys run their own UFO observatory, and this night they seem to have found something really interesting.

War and famine drive the inhabitants of the snowy forest into desperate and macabre deeds.

An overdressed girl tries her luck in dance events that are for Finnish tourists in a small Estonian health resort town, Pärnu.

An aspiring picture artist goes to great lengths to produce just the right pieces for his upcoming show. Break a leg!

A story about the special relationship between Jaana and her daughter Liisa who died in a traffic accident at the age of 16.

Do machines play music? Is there a difference between a dot matrix printer and a record turntable? Optical Sound, Taanila’s 2005 wide-screen interpretation of [The User]’s brutalist sound piece for an array of obsolete printers, depicts the devices ratcheting horizontally together in a stalled symphony, inkjets repeatedly blackening the same area on the page. It is not the blurring of man with machine that lies at the core of this film, but the blurring of the spaces that each has been traditionally obliged to occupy. We disappear into our data streams, which are everywhere and “nowhere” at the same time. (Ken Hollings)

Tuomas, a man in his thirties, has lost everything in Thailand – his family, his possessions and the trust of his friends. Hoping to qualify for an early age pension in his native Finland, Tuomas is in such a bad shape that even his legs can’t support his skeletal body anymore. Will anything change when Tuomas’s friends decide to help the man with a drinking problem for one last time and set out to get him home from the streets of Thailand?

The graffiti on the grey concrete walls of the disused prison in Turku are like cave paintings from a lost civilisation in the Finnish artist Saara Ekström’s ‘Shadow Codex’, which, with a simple but overwhelmingly suggestive approach, lets text, drawings and the shabby pinup posters speak their own language about incarceration and institutionalised punishment. Each cell is a gallery, an indexical imprint of the anonymous inmates’ minds, from a past conjured forth by the film’s timeless black and white 16mm images, with a gloomy melancholy that borders on madness. But, at the same time, the surveillance machinery, the architecture and the many layers of engravings tell us about a society which, in its attempt to maintain law and order, creates monuments of its own shadow – set against John Cage’s ‘Perilous Night’.

A black cat is enjoying his day.

A Finnish girl detached from reality finds an opportunity for deep human connection.

"Wherever you go, there you are."

A famous director is shooting a film in Estonia. Two newly graduated women have been cast in the lead roles, Milka, who is a charismatic natural talent and Eeva, who is easily left out. Between the shootings, Eeva discovers supernatural powers in a mysterious pond near the set, and makes a pact with the pond's devil. The price of being part of the community turns out to be the highest possible.

A short film about a young man who gets a cat for his loneliness. However, it soon becomes clear that there is something very wrong with the cat.

Ivan, 58, is a seagull, a Bulgarian ladies’ man hooking up with female tourists at a Sunny Beach resort. He has done this for forty years, ever since the Communist times. Ivan wants to settle down, but that’s not so easy for an old Seagull. He’s got no savings and the pandemic makes things even more difficult: there are no tourists. Ivan supports himself by washing cars and windows. He tries to connect to Russian ladies to help them get visas to the EU and buy property in Bulgaria. He soon understands that he’s not really credible as a serious male companion. Ivan’s real wound is an adult son in Ukraine who refuses to talk to him. Maybe now, in spring 2022, would be the right time to reconnect.

El Rio Grind 20 year retrospective. ERG is a skate crew from Tampere, Finland. Over 20 years, they have been filming and making skate movies year after year. This is the director’s visual overview of these days.

Corporal Möttönen is an incomparable humorist whose easygoing banter brings a pleasant atmosphere to the unit. The smooth-talking man from Savo is assigned to the entertainment troops at the front.

A swordsman chases after an art thief in a world full of adventure and splendor.

An ethnographic film about seal hunting at the Gulf of Bothnia

It is the movie - travel on secret side of Finland. The mythology connected with one of the most ancient stories around the world - BOCK SAGA. The Saga told from creation of the world which was transmitted presently by Ior Bock. In the film, we will go together with Jim Chesnar (the friend and the pupil of Ior Bock) in places connected with the Saga. We will visit islands, caves, the real North Pole, the most ancient castle on the planet, we will open many secrets and we will visit a place of burial of Ior Bock.

Intimate moment between a father and son – one night, one car ride, one problem.

The 200th Finlandia Review from March 1953 begins by telling the story of making newsreels. Then, in flashbacks, we see highlights from the first ten years of the reviews, from the difficult war years to the 1952 Olympic year and Armi Kuusela.

Mannerheim's last journey from Switzerland to Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki.

Women's gymnastics with piano accompaniment.

Shoes are made from leather purchased with funds donated by Finnish Americans and distributed to children from poor families.

The film presents Finnish design and interior design accessories.

Introduction to the city of Turku and its history.

French mannequins showcase French fashion and explore Helsinki's attractions.

A film about medical achievements commissioned by the Finnish Cancer Society.

Introducing ports of Helsinki

Documentary about hydrography at the Baltic Sea

Growing up in the 1990s, X makes prank calls as a child and works in telephone sales as a teenager. Office smells, heavy breathers, and meaningless greetings follow her. Using archival material and amateur footage, the film explores voice as a faceless, commercialized asset.

Alina has always admired her friend Roosa, until the events of a cottage trip reveal the true face of their friendship.

A documentary of Varala, a physical education institute for women in Tampere, Finland. Filmed in the summer of 1947.

In 1940s Lapland, a young girl discovers her sexuality and begins to defy the boundaries set by her father, with tragic consequences.

A family that raises meat rabbits invites viewers to follow the journey of a litter of bunnies from nest to pot.

One Man Multishow tells the story of the life of artistic chameleon Teemu Keisteri.

"Don't Go Home With Satan is the first part of my experimental short animation series based on my dreams. Video is based on a song I heard on my dream. When waking up I could not recall it anymore. Several months later it suddenly came to me again. I found a skull from the forest, perhaps a fox, mice had eaten some of it. I turned it around and saw something creepy, like face of a devil, and as walking back to a house I start humming the song from my dream; 'Don't go home with Satan, he will eat your children'. Skull became a character and I build the story around it."