Discoveries from Finland World Cinema

One hundred motorists gather and follow the summertime tradition of riding together to the sunset.

What binds people into a relationship? What happens when those bonds come loose and break up? This is an intimate story of two people: their love, family life and separation. The passing of years changes a person. Is the waning of love inevitable?

Ánnámáret yoiks about the moon in short film.

Drawing upon Sufi traditions of interpreting Islamic sacred texts where love and equality are celebrated, Journey to the CharBagh is a poetic and experimental exploration of queerness from a Muslim perspective. The narrative focuses on the figure of the Buraq, a winged mythological creature with the ability to travel to heaven, encountering terrestrial and celestial beings, moving toward a spiritual and queer awakening.

A hardboiled killer wants to bury the ghosts of his past. What price he's going to pay in the end?

A fugitive of time and space escaping the demons of his past, present and future.

Six young people gather together to celebrate harvest until something outside of this world begins to lurk them.

A group of Italian exchange students are celebrating their year in Finland in a cabin in the woods. Meanwhile, reports of a zombie epidemic fill the airwaves. Who will be eaten - the Italians or the zombies?

Short film.

Satama” is an observative short documentary film about the demolishion of a squat called ”Satama Social Center”, which has been a safe haven, a shelter, for youngsters fighting against commerciality, individualism and capitalism in Helsinki, Finland. The film depicts the activist community's and its particpants' arranged events during the final months of the squat, before the inevitable triumph of the capitalistic values prevail.

Filmmaker Antti Haase takes us on a personal journey, learning about his fathers’ legacy. Baltic German engineer Gunnar Haase, initially a refugee, arrived in Finnish Lapland in 1945 to repair the destruction left by the Germans. Antti’s father Hannu continued grandfather Gunnar’s mission to bring electricity to Lapland – the powerlines finally reaching the very last Lapland home on the 23th July,1987. Rural electrification was an enormous undertaking; it brought modern life and equality to people still living in the harsh nature. And while the undertaking took a heavy toll, it also illuminated the way forward. The Illuminators is an inspiring story about courage and social progress as well as sons following in their father’s footsteps.

Finland's Eurovision Song Contest Blind Channel performed in Helsinki in August 2021. The energetic band attracted fans from Central Europe to their gig at Allas Sea Pool.

Jouni Hiltunen has filmed Cranes for many years. He decides to once again follow the Crane family's summer in Finland from early spring to the birth of a Crane chick. After the nesting he leaves on a so-called birds road with migrating Cranes, towards Hungary and finally to Israel, to find out if there is a winter paradise for migrating Cranes somewhere. The film about the year of the Cranes and the migration journey expands to a story about the coexistence of man in a rapidly changing world.

The construction of a traditional Finnish log house.

The first documentary in the world about the sport of disc golf. In the film a high school senior Tuomas Hyytiäinen prepares for the first competition of his professional disc golf career.

On Utö, the southernmost inhabited island in Finland, an unusual love triangle is taking shape. What's the difference between dance moves sparked by joy and wild movements driven by rage?

A hunter brings a feathered bird as an offering to the goddess of his ancestors. Tapiola is a film-poem in defense of nature and humanity. It is also a documentary that tells the story of modern man's loss of contact with the environment and its transformation into a commodity.

A Band Called Milk is the story of a 14 year-old boy, who joins a punk band to impress a girl.

Documentary that questions the conception of time through optical experiments and symbolic images.

Combining the animation aesthetics of tacky kids’ TV shows of the 70s with striking horror imagery and pairing it all with an appropriate soundtrack makes SleepyBear the kind of an assault on the senses that nightmares are made of.

The filmmaker interviews her 5 sisters, her brother, and her demented mother about their common past. The siblings have radically different narratives of their shared history, disagreeing on vital questions including which parent was abusive and which protective.

There was no room for other animals in the ark. The only one left is the king of creation, the worst of all animals, human.

Suomi-Filmi Oy's silent documentary follows the official four-day state visit of King Gustav V of Sweden and his wife Queen Victoria to Finland in August 1925. In addition to Helsinki, the royal couple visits Savonlinna and Viipuri. Two contemporary documentaries were made on the subject, one of which was produced by Kurt Jäger's Oy Taide-Filmi Ab.

After a childhood spent tightly together with her twin sister, Apila began to question gender identity. This started a long process of self-acceptance, complicated by expectations set by the environment and society.

Film by Sami van Ingen

Hammu is the name of the hamster I had as a child. It seemed it was my only friend and being to identify with. One day it disappeared from the cage and was never to be seen again, that marked the end of my childhood, of unreserved trust and commitment. This work is a visualisation of the memories I have about the event, of obsession, tediousness and loss.

The work shows pedestrian walk signs painted on the street. The signs have been filmed during one year. The name of the film is also a sign which can be read: as before, as previously. The repetitive piece refers to the beautiful emotion: longing for something that was before.

The film is made up of news photos and short dramatised fragments which Ruutsalo once again manipulated by painting. One of the greatest features of Teddy is the electronic score composed by Osmo Lindeman which was performed on Dico, an instrument designed by Erkki Kurenniemi.

A restless suburb in the Northeast-Helsinki. A drunk is raving violently in the hallway. A post box frame is stuck on his arm. There is blood on the stairs. Black Hole Mama does not romanticize poverty. Some residents have clearly lost control over their own lives and consume alcohol in unhealthy amounts. Still, as the rascals and yobs tell their life stories, it is difficult not to be surprised and touched. The black and white imagery emphasizes the nostalgic yet timeless mood of the film. It is easy like a summer afternoon, sunny with just a hint of sadness.

Documentary about the great cultural transformation of Helsinki, Finland, in the early 1980's. The birth of new sub-cultures, art galleries and performances.

Four individuals are discussing about morality, survival - and, above all, eating. Who defines what is right or wrong in the situation with less and less options?

A couple spend christmas with the husband's grumpy father.

Interweaving newsreel footage and film extracts with the voices of ‘Ajan laulu’ – a workers’ choir based in Kemi, the most leftist city in Finland – the essay film takes us on a historical journey examining the collective memory, dreams and traumas of the working class. Is there a future for the Finnish labour movement?

The Blackouts is an essay that tells the story of a family moving from Finland to Poland in search of their roots. Living in Warsaw, they face the hustle and bustle of a city scorched by its tragic past.

Everyone needs to be free, even if the cost of this freedom is high – this is the message that Nosfe, a young Finnish film-maker delivers via his short film Pako completed in 2001. This rebellious work captivates us through a succession of provocative slogans that accompany a rapid flow of images of Helsinki.

Far north, in the isles of Svalbard, is a small town called Pyramiden that was once the finest model of communism. Now the former home of Soviet workers is almost empty – but not completely abandoned. Every year thousands of tourists come to see the town of Pyramiden. Nine people live in Pyramiden to serve the tourists as guides, cooks and hotel employees. The residents live without Internet or telephone connections. It’s a place where one can hide from the flood of stimulus and constant messaging that surround us in the modern world – a sanctuary to find peace of mind.

Old dark jugend villa draws a high school girl away from drawing class to explore it.

There is a line of men chasing us through a city where we can’t run. The escape is gruelling, our feet are wet and we drown deeper. We are not afraid, we have seen this before. This film is based on personal recordings of people narrating their recurring dreams.

Sleeping Myllymäki: “Movie art is free visual art and free audial art together. And the script of my movie is more important than my face and more important than my studio.”

When the famous Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra prepares to perform a symphony by Joonas Kokkonen, Heikki Tikka works in the shadows to make sure every single thing is in its right place. Bellboy is a documentary short film about the servant who rules over everything.

Boom is an independent episode from a series of seven films entitled Waste. Boom was shot in Kittilä in northern Finland, in a ‘lunar landscape’ on top of a hill where the Finnish armed forces annually disposes of expired explosives. Calculations show that detonation is the least expensive method of disposal.During a week­long camp a total of 1.2 million kg of explosives are destroyed. The explosion safety area is seven kilometres. The explosion produces a mushroom cloud that reaches up to the lowers clouds and creates a crater about ten metres deep and thirty metres across. In the video, army representatives talk about ‘a hole three majors deep’.

A lonely ice fisherman discovers his frozen prehistoric soul brother and thaws him out for a wild all-night party.

Sami Hedberg, one of Finland's best-known stand-up comedians, set out in 2015 to break a world record. Over the course of the year, he performed 365 shows in over 100 cities to nearly 100,000 spectators. A new Guinness World Record was set when the man performed over 200 gigs lasting at least an hour. This is a collection of the funniest moments from memorable stand-up gigs around Finland. Includes never-before-seen improvisational moments from Sami Hedberg's 365 tour.

Two neighbours are also co-workers.

The documentary film, Tattoo, tells about teenage students who had tattoos performed on them during their art lessons at upper comprehensive school. This happened in the small Finnish town of Forssa in 1995.

A girl discovers a young man playing with a lasso in the living room.

A commissioned film about the Inkoo harbour

An educational film about the Finnish Navy

Pilots at work off Helsinki

Documenting a traditional method of fishing Baltic herring with a seine