Discoveries from Finland World Cinema

Mannerheim's life stages.

Dramatized information film about drunk driving. Accident caused by drunk driving, forensic medical research, the effect of alcohol on human functioning.

Portrait of a sculptor.

Industrial fair in Seinäjoki.

The camera takes us to Northern Savo to follow the burning of the forest. The different stages of the burning of the forest are filmed and the tools and methods associated with them are introduced, including the preparation of a firewood basket and the making of straw bales. The film tells about the food and childcare of the people who burn the forest. The film brings to life the life of the Finnish community of past centuries.

A picture of Kajaani as the industrial, economic and cultural center of Kainuu and a regional overview of new construction activities in Hyrynsalmi, Sotkamo and Kuhmo in the late 1940s.

Helsinki, buildings, parks, statues and monuments.

A rare musical compilation, a Finnish dance film from the early 1950s, the first performances of Latin music and dance in Finland. Rumba and samba are performed by Rytmi-Veikko, Kalevi Huuskonen and Sacy Sand. The dances are directed by Veikko Niemelä and performed by the dance couple Olavi and Eeva Nieminen.

Members of the Academy in the University of Helsinki's ballroom and at their work.

An introductory film for the city of Lappeenranta.

Presentation of goldsmithing and silversmithing, making jewelry by hand. Studying at a goldsmith school. The school was the only school in the Nordic countries in the field.

An educational film about the dangers of moving on ice, rescue methods and first aid.

Athletics national competition in 1948. Including Viljo Heino and Tapio Rautavaara.

Construction of Finland's first oil refinery in Naantali

Floating, log cabins at work and in their free time.

Logging, rafting down a rapid, wood processing, making matches and skis.

Fishing, rafting, floating, log cabins.

"Once upon a time, a chimney sweep could get his cheek stuffed with cum..." A film about the Strengberg Oy tobacco factory in Pietarsaari, which was founded in 1762. Since 1842, it has been the largest tobacco factory in the Nordic countries, and in 1946, it employed a couple of thousand female employees. The film depicts the production of cigars and cigarettes, which is largely done by traditional handcraft. The factory's social activities are also described.

Drawing lessons at school and at the Ateneum.

A rare documentary about the Finnish parliamentary elections in March 1945. Finland was the first country at war to hold parliamentary elections. The Finnish parliamentary elections attracted exceptionally wide attention from foreign media at the time. Prime Minister J.K. Paasikivi also waited in line for an hour for the polling station to open, as did other voters in the constituency.

A beautifully filmed documentary film by Erik Blomberg about the Jämijärvi glider and motor flight training during the war year of 1942. Matti and Pekka are on both glider and motor flight courses. The end of the film is dramatic and charged, and it is not staged. How does a cloud flight training landing succeed in poor visibility when the field is lost? "At least that boy is still alive, the brave one is eating a rocket..."

A film about the history of Finland since 1918.

Karelian village life from 1935-39. Pressing the soil (Impilahdi Metsäkylä), tying the forest (Salmi), cutting the scythe (Impilahdi Metsäkylä), the village shepherd with his herd in the early morning (Salmi Varpaselkä), the Työmpäisten sacrificial cemetery (Salmi Mantsinsaari), visiting the scythes (Salmi Mantsinsaari), making scythes (Suistamon Tuomilampi), washing and rinsing laundry with a "poalikoima", tying clothes and spinning on a spindle.

Boat ride along the shores of Helsinki

Finnish Winter War, conclusion of the armistice.

The arrival of spring in Helsinki in 1941, the celebration of May Day, the international match march.

A small fine art musical film shot during the armistice in the spring of 1941, featuring Harry Bergström's 7-member entertainment orchestra. Flower girl Kaija Rahola sings the ending song beautifully.

An ethnographic film about net fishing in calm and stormy weather in Kalla, Kalajoki parish. There are fishermen there from as far as Hailuoto and Kokkola. The fishermen have a society in Kalla, the decision-making body of which is the Kari meeting. There is a church in Maakalla and a lighthouse in Ulkokalla, with Kalla's landmarks and sea signs.

"The people of Tampere have always understood what prosperity leads to..." An excellent city documentary filmed by Tampere's own man, Uno Pihlström (1903-1965), in 1940 during the armistice, which is enlivened by an interesting narration. In 1940, Tampere, the Manchester of Finland, had three hundred factories. "Tampere will not rest until Manchester is called the Tampere of England." The film's final ascent is spectacular: in the aerial view "Tampere opens up, large, handsome, energetic."

The border between Finland and Russia has been closed since 2024, when Russia began to direct large amounts of asylum seekers to the border. This short film, shot in the border town of Imatra, gives the local population a chance to express their thoughts about the closing and its consequences. People’s reactions range from uncertainty and fear caused by the war to concerns about the decline of local livelihoods and families being torn apart.

The film opens with a family’s home video of a car journey to the beach. Memories are woven into the sea and water, carrying within them family bonds, siblinghood, and change. This intimate work invites the viewer to reflect on memory, belonging, and connections to others. The sea and aquariums portray life flowing through time and space.

City of Oulu celebrating its 350th anniversary

Splattenstein is back on screen! A throwback straight from Finland’s dirtiest turn-of-the-millennium splatter days.

About a woman who manufactures job applications to get a job in manufacturing.

A film about passenger ships at the Baltic Sea

In Petri Luukkainen’s combination of music documentary and personal portrait, we get to know the mental landscape of saxophonist Timo Lassy, who has long been one of the foremost names in Finnish jazz. “What makes me happy as a person and an artist?” asks Lassy, who is struggling with aging and life changes and has realized that he cannot continue living as before.

The documentary follows how a former psychiatric hospital that had been abandoned is transformed into a thriving center for art, culture, and mental well-being with the arrival of new tenants. With limited resources, activists in Lapinlahti decide to continue the area's mental health work in a citizen-driven way, allowing the disadvantaged members of society to shine. The place fills up with entrepreneurs, therapists, artists, and associations, and the park area in the city center, closed to Helsinki residents for 170 years, comes to life with cafes, saunas, museums, and bakeries. The road is not easy. The city administration does not seem to recognize the value of the project, and the Lapinlahti community has to fight constantly for its existence. At the heart of the film is the threat of the area being sold to a large real estate investor, as plans are made to build a giant hotel in the park.

A dream that became real

Filmed at Helsinki’s Odysseus Festival in 2022, the film chronicles the British artist Alabaster DePlume’s travels and philosophy

A moving image work that is wrapped around the body of the Gold Bug. The work deals with complex and entangled, sometimes frictional issues of ecology, wealth and the logic of value. The reference to the gold bug also derives from several sources, including Edgar Allan Poe's story The Gold Bug (1843). In a financial context, a ""gold bug"" advocates for the gold standard, expressing a fervent belief in gold as a stable and valuable asset. In African mythology, the golden beetle symbolizes the rising of the sun. Thus, the bug is seen as a mythical, economic, and biological creature, both living and dead, ventriloquized by recurring social and political practices, a crystal of both ownership and dispossession.

A cinematic essay and poetic portrayal of food delivery workers as they navigate the bustling streets. The film reflects on how the rise of this 'new working class' has reshaped the urban visual landscape. In different parts of the world, these workers may be migrants, people of color, or individuals from low-caste or rural backgrounds, all striving to make a living.

A short film about a sorrowful ballad sung by a forgotten folk singer—and the desire to remember its ending differently.

The film presents gaps as institutional tools that reproduce exclusivity (after Sara Ahmed). Combining critical theory with narratives of marginalization and discrimination gathered through research interviews, the essay film offers an intersectional understanding of how whiteness is actively reproduced in our everyday environments. In addition to outlining the cultural-historical context of Finland, the film highlights the Academy of Fine Arts at the Uniarts Helsinki as a case study—examining the gap between its outwardly promoted policies and the reality of their implementation, as well as the institution’s exclusionary culture and discriminatory practices, drawing from the lived experiences of marginalized students.

Digital animation brings to life drawings of the northern lights created in 1839 by French graphic artist Louis Bévalet in the Alta region in Sápmi, Northern Norway. Multiplying curves mark infinite spaces penetrated by the hypnotic yoiking of homeless spirits – Vuoiŋŋat – performed by indigenous Sami musician Ánnámáret, accompanied by carelian bowed lyre and electronic music.

Although he is well past his prime, Juice’s passion for skateboarding hasn’t lessened at all. He takes an enchantingly nostalgic look back on his life, artistically weaving together today and the days of yesteryear. Together with his son, and in the style of a home video, he tells the story of a love that even the rivalry between skaters and scooters cannot destroy.

A system that is planned from start to finish is improved, scaled up, marketed, and made sustainable. We see production and reproduction and the mechanisms of modern high-rise animal husbandry.

Overtime is about a girl who would like to play, but the parents want her to succeed by any means necessary. The girl dies in a skating accident, and the parents make a deal with God.

On a warm summer day in rural Finland, a young boy meets his friend to collect on a dreary promise.

Finland may be the happiest country on earth, but it is also known as the land of a thousand sad songs. Lurking in the shadows of this Nordic welfare state are violence, alcoholism and inequality. A century after its premiere, the most Finnish of all operas is now being performed in a new production at the Helsinki Opera House.

A man tries to lose his catcalling virginity.

The story of Silvanus, the deity of wild forests. He manifests in the beauty of greenery as well as in the fangs of wild beasts, and he’s not particularly pleased when forests are cut down and domesticated.

The classic military education film Battlefield (1998) is familiar to dozens of generations of conscripts.

A teen party gets out of hand when two hungover teenagers find a dead body afterwards.

Short film about uncle who come back to Finland from America.

The Sahrawi women relate their exil, the tortures, their memories and the difficulties of life as refugees. They are beautiful, touching... Educated by the Polisario Front and attached to the values of islam, they are widows, divorcede or married to fighting men. Owing to the force of circumstances, they have built a society of independant muslim women...