Discoveries from Finland World Cinema

Confronted by his mothers night terrors, a nascent witch descends into the Fenno-Ugric underworld.

The film consists of three imaginary endings for disaster movies. The ideas have been collected from people in Helsinki, and acted by 100 volunteers. A zombie movie, a dystopian ecocatastrophe and a monster movie are all realized in different styles.

A documentary about the Finnish band Leevi and the Leavings

Christina discovers that her teenage daughter, Johanna, has become a vampire. Horrified by her daughter's new lifestyle, Christina seeks help from Father Christodoulopoulos to cure her daughter.

Nuppi bealde is a yoik in which the spirits of Saivo, the two-bottomed lake, are brought forth. The Sámi musician Ánnámáret's yoik melody first carries the video piece with a soaring treble, but as the piece progresses, it sinks into the depths, accompanied by Ilkka Heinonen's jouhikko (finnish bowed lyre). The soundscapes created by Turkka Inkilä first create an image of twinkling clocks, frost and spaciousness, but later shatter and are reborn in another form, creating an image of a different kind of world. The visual material of the work is a combination of ice, water, the spreading of watercolor paint and drawing animation, where the real elements of the landscape are multiplied and repeated and the black and white landscape is colored, fragmented and transformed.

A portrait of an artist Risto Vilhunen.

A dramatized documentary film about an old Finnish man who meets a young African immigrant girl and wants to help her.

In Northern Finland, a forest evokes childhood memories. Pleasurable snow play lures a poet into self-creation with nature. Pushing through thick snow, the poet reaches the snow’s erotic energy, dissolving the idea of humans as separate from nature.

Utö – 300 myrskyisää vuotta offers sunsets, storms, drama, touching memories, and a hopeful outlook from those who have recently come to Utö.

Denisse Moralli and Tiina Jääskö dance that exploring communication without word and the place of rich silence that can be found between people.

Noora is a dance short film that follows Noora's movement. She is a dancer. Her body's impulses are generated in the moment from contact with different environments. Noora has congenital bone fragility, Osteogenesis Imperfecta. She uses a wheelchair as a dancing aid and in it, she can move widely, but feels isolated from the surrounding environment. She is searching ways to move, focusing on possibilities rather than on limitations. On the ground, she feels the ground against her skin. In the water she can let go of her wheelchair. Noora's toes sink into the mud bottom, which pulsates with her steps. The water supports her fragile body with its pressure and surrounded by it she dares to move more freely, her body is more elastic, her expressions and range of motion are greater.

A travel film introducing Finland, domestic tourist destinations and vacation opportunities through the eyes of frame narrators, "foreign tourists".

A commisioned film about Finnish import

A sponsored film promoting the Finnish wood processing and paper industries

A documentary on the history of the Finnish cavalry.

Sun and Moon is a fantasy story about conflicts between opposites. The story takes place in a fictional medieval kingdom named Ryhmin. Ryhmin is being tested by its surrounding wilderness, where the greater spirit Muinein controls the events of the story. Disagreement about the use of magic has divided the people of Ryhmin. Some see magic as an opportunity to better the world, others fear it will lead to Ryhmin's destruction. Is there a balance?

The year is 1965. A list of British nuclear weapon installations slips out of the hands of the Defense Minister. George Whitebrooke is sent to stop a deal from taking place before it starts raining hell-fire.

1976. For the past three years, MI6 has been hunting down the criminal mastermind only known as The Man in Red. When the villain finally surfaces, super-spy George Whitebrooke is tasked with bringing him down before the vengeful villain can bring the world to the brink of a financial disaster. The mission quickly proves itself near-impossible even for the legendary gentleman agent, however, as his enemy not only possesses genius intellect but a gun-hand of rivaling - even surpassing - skill.

Henrik Gezelius is an unpredictable and fanatical priest. His obsession with witchcraft arouses disapproval and curiosity. The witches must be exterminated, but what does the bridegroom have to do with it? Clashes of worlds of values ​​cause a lot of chaos on bachelor parties and in a country town. When he gets lost, he exposes himself to dangers and temptations. You have to keep your head together and understand the plan.

Experimental documentary about the remaking of a ship.

Circus short film Inspired by the Pasila Street Art District in Helsinki exploring urban life from unexpected angles. Collaboration between contemporary circus group Race Horse Company, music producer RRKK and the Helsinki Urban Art.

Hate opens up the questions of the way the "other" is portrayed in the depiction of the Finnish national epic Kalevala.

As a young black man from Guinea, Amadou struggles to make a life for himself in Moscow. In search of the “european dream” and somewhere to call home, amadou leaves his girlfriend behind making an arduous escape into germany, only to discover life as difficult as before. will amadou find his home, or does his journey continue?

Pitch-dark symphony of a pyromaniac at nocturnal streets of a city.

Finnish drama.

Documentary about love.

Boat trip from Savonlinna to Kuopio.

Short film.

Documentary about uprising in Hungary after death of Stalin.

Documentary film of Finnish civil war.

ÉTUDE OF SADNESS is an experimental film about death and witnessing death. It’s a journey into the experience of death seen from the eyes of both, the dying and the living, where the sense of time and place disappears. As we break out of our bodies, we see the world more multidimensionally. We are more alive than when we were alive. Where is the line between living and dying? Is there one?

The adventures of Count Splattenstein reach their insane peak in the movie Splattenstein 3D

The unexpected love story between a huntress and the girl she was meant to hunt.

Imre has dedicated his entire life to practising the amadou craft. Tinder mushrooms growing on the trunks of trees can be stretched into leather-like material, which can be used to manufacture hats, for example. The art of this traditional Romanian handcraft is threatening to disappear, since there are no too many artisans left. Imre wants to secure the future of the craft and has taken an apprentice. The documentary short introduces the rare traditional handcraft and takes us on a trip to the forest with Imre and his apprentice to harvest the tinder mushrooms at dawn.

My film is inspired by Guy Debord’s film “La société du spectacle.” It is a sarcastic variation on one of the film’s themes: human loneliness in society and in the world.

A series of photos and screenshots tell the story of how Samira Elagoz and Z Walsh, two transmasculine artists, fall madly in love with each other. We witness their first meeting, the start of a long-distance relationship, the meeting of the families, Z’s top surgery – all milestones are recorded in a uniquely intimate and moving way. A portrait of queer/trans love that we don’t get to see often enough.

Wed Al-Asadi, having fled the civil war in Iraq, applies for asylum in Finland. Although his lawyer is confident that he will receive a residence permit, his request is rejected.

Ethnographic documentary.

What if another world is already here: Materializing posthuman feminist thoughts on female/animal/technology, an AI recording body enters a parasitic conference and feeds off an academic institution and its resources. "We Bites Us" combines film, AI, and social interactions to suggest organizational scores for artistic production and collaborations.

The video shows women nurturing each other and a baby. We see fish and other marine creatures, a sauna, the autumn sea – contrasts of heat and cold. The gallery were it is screened is heated to resemble human body temperature. Prouvost’s piece harks back to the pre-linguistic beginnings of human life, a time of metamorphosis, when touch and sound are primary. How would it feel to be a baby again? Or to swim in the sea like a fish? The artist reminds us of our watery origins: the slender-tailed sperm evolves into a fish-like embryo and finally into a human infant.

The suitcase is packed and patiently awaits a holiday in paradise. A woman trying to leave goes through a last-minute flurry of checks throughout her house to make sure she can be at peace on her trip.

Talking about emotions is almost impossible for many Finnish men. In this short documentary four men and one trans person share personal stories and experiences about growing up into Finnish manhood and how they are learning to break the silence. The protagonists are frozen within the frames of still landscape.

This is a film about a daughter’s feelings about losing her father. Like the scenery from a running train, memories are beautiful, blurry, and keep changing. In this experimental animated documentary, the author mixed video footage and analog film with animation techniques and brought through a diary-like atmosphere to immerse the audience in unspeakable feelings of losing a loved one.

Sweet Like Lemons is a visual reflection on getting out of a harmful relationship and moving on. The title is a play on the saying “when life gives you lemons make lemonade”, only in this case there is no lemonade to be made but the lemons still taste sweeter than what you left behind.

The documentary film Shadow is a cinematic portrait of artist Aalto Asplund. In the documentary film, Asplund describes the deep relationship with shame that has overshadowed their whole life. The scenery of an isolated island in autumn colours reflects the landscape of Asplund’s mind. It’s a place where Asplund finally confronts their fears and the shadow, trying to break free.

War documentary short from Continuation war produced by Finnish armed forces.

The Rhythm of My Land is a fast-paced sequence of images from present-day Kabul, a vivid collage capturing the prevailing mood in Afghanistan after the Taliban invaded the capital and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on 15 August 2021, abandoning his people to the terrorist regime. It is a film about anxiety spreading from one person to the next, about despair over lost opportunities, about the moment you are robbed of your future. It shows people stranded in a black hole of history, gasping for air like a fish on dry land, writhing in agony like a snake held in the grip of a devil that has declared itself the master.

Those Who Kept the Light is a project loosely based on stories of female lighthouse keepers in Scandinavia. The project explores our co-dependent relationship to the sea in context of queer and feminist maritime narratives. The narratives are often told through the voices and context of more-than human others, such as the wind, a prawn or a lighthouse. The sea, the wind, the ocean are seen as entities with consciousness and a voice. Within the wider framework of climate emergency and the role of the fragile ecosystems of the ocean, the project explores the collective mind-set of imagination, hope and imagined spaces of solace and power through and within epic and barren Nordic landscape.

An explorer comes to a remote island seeking treasure. He discovers traps, terrors and a magic remote control.

The video shows the artist in Sámi costume bouncing on a trampoline in a snowy landscape. In between bouncing, she drags the trampoline through the snow - an exhausting exercise judging by her heavy puffing. Marja Helander is a descendant of the Ohcejohka (Utsjoki) Sami on her father's side. Many of her works deal with the challenges of straddling two cultures as part-Finn, part-Sámi. In her early series of photographs The Generations, she juxtaposes self-portraits with old family snapshots and archival material from the Finnish Heritage Agency.

A year in the life of a wildlife bridge over a busy highway in southern Finland, showing the animals crossing over and the traffic flowing under.