Finland

“Eight Deadly Shots is perhaps the most nuanced picture of the working of the economic system in the history of our cinema: a close-up of a man up against the wall, at the most basic level of breathing.”
–Peter von Bagh, Kansan UutisetRead More »

Single mother name Pike who, having just been released from prison, is trying to start her news life anew. When her former boyfriend Lalli come back from abroad, it open a window into her past that Pike want to put behind her.Read More »

Young priest returns from America to work in an old Helsinki neighbourhood with idyllic wooden houses. The shy but handsome bachelor is assigned the duty of marriage counseling but is soon overwhelmed by the ladies’ romantic interest directed at himself. Trying to please everybody, he also creates confusion by taking both sides in the issue of whether to preserve the neighbourhood or to go along with the modernisation plans offered by property developers. –IMDBRead More »

Saku and Ässä: two guys spend careless life. One day Ässä meet woman named Anna and boys careless lifestyle is in danger.Read More »

An annual family Christmas get-together that sees the usual tensions rise.

Mummola begins with a door that keeps on opening to let its characters into a house surrounded by nature that will be the setting of much of the film, and welcomes the audience into a small world that is portrayed with fierce tenderness and surprising rigour. Three generations come together for the holidays and re-enact a seasonal ritual of traditions, conversations and household chores. These elements would seem to indicate the return of the Nordic family drama, but Tia Kouvo’s debut is more of a “comédie humaine” that opts instead for an analysis of behaviour, relationships and private spaces that is both ironic and harrowing. In between meals around the table, anecdotes, TV programmes and, yes, saunas, there are no secrets or traumas to be revealed, but above all gestures to observe and silences to interpret.Read More »

IMDB wrote:
An atmospheric indian summer triangle drama.
Decent melodrama from the studio era. Liana Kaarina plays a vamp-like young vagrant hitch hiker, who gets a ride from older industrialist who consequently takes her to his summer house to be his mistress. She takes full advantage of the situation and plans a prosperous marriage when she meets a young man while skinny dipping…

Surprisingly fresh effort from (the biggest studio mogul of Finland) Särkkä, who (with great help from the master cinematographer Olavi Tuomi) succeeds in creating a suitably sleazy atmosphere to unfold the drama in.Read More »

The story of a Finnish Army machine gun company operating in the Karelian front during the Continuation War from mobilization in 1941 to the Moscow Armistice in 1944.Read More »

Quote:
The Finnish national tendency toward alcoholism lurks behind Teuvo Tulio’s association of destruction with drinking—downing the first shot marks the beginning of dissipation in all of his films. Alcohol is inextricably intertwined with sex, corruption of innocence demonstrated by a woman accepting a glass of wine from a man, lost virginity symbolized by a tipped over or broken champagne flute. Regina Linnanheimo’s final collaboration with Tulio addressed alcoholism head on in You Have Gone Into My Blood (1956). Since his career was on its final downturn in the mid-50s, the film was made under the auspices of alcohol prevention education to ensure funding. In a project she scripted herself, Linnanheimo plays Rea, a sheltered plain-jane who is driven to drink after two worldly men seduce her into a romantic triangle.Read More »

A simple can of ravioli propels this spectacular 30,000-kilometre, eight-country journey through all phases of food production and the far flung sources of international ingredients. A dream-like voyage with glimpses of disconcerting realities, the story begins with a single mother toiling in one of the biggest open pit mines in Brazil and ends on the shelf of a grocery store in Finland. Along the way, the workers whose calloused hands mine, raise and harvest each ingredient reveal their dreams and hopes, like the Danish pig farmer who loves his sows but longs for a girlfriend, and the Portuguese tomato picker who wants to stay healthy long enough to pay her daughters way through university. Sumptuous photography and impressive sound design make an eloquent statement about our modern, globalized world, making us aware of the hundreds of invisible people who prepare the food we eat every day. -Gisèle Gordon (HotDocs.ca)Read More »