Quote:
Fourteen desperate men named Frank, band together to escape from a repressive section of Helsinki. An English-speaking non-Frank named Pekka joins the barroom conspirators, whose avoidance of last names, and any affect, help them outsmart overwhelming forces as they sneak through dark subway tunnels and alleys, hoping against despair to reach magical seaside Eira. The Calamari Unionists take advantage of unending night to venture their intrepid journey.Read More »
Finnish
-
Aki Kaurismäki – Calamari Union (1985)
1981-1990Aki KaurismäkiArthouseComedyFinland -
Mika Kaurismäki – Jackpot 2 (1982)
1981-1990FinlandMika KaurismäkiSci-FiShort FilmQuote:
Three young people, two boys and a girl, meet on a Friday evening in an urban post-disaster setting which has brought Helsinki to ruins. The boys’ sole purpose of life is to play a Flip-Flop pinball machine.Read More » -
Mika Kaurismäki – Valehtelija AKA the Liar (1981)
1981-1990ComedyDramaFinlandMika Kaurismäki
Talkative, hyperactive young drifter Ville Alfa goes around Helsinki, basically trying to borrow money from friends and strangers by means of an incessant delivery of quirky and snappy quasi-intellectual lines and fabricated excuses.Read More »
-
Aki Kaurismäki – Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö aka The Match Factory Girl (1990)
1981-1990Aki KaurismäkiComedyDramaFinlandQuote:
A woman’s terribly dull life is upended by a one-night stand pregnancy, causing her to seek retribution.Read More » -
William Markus – Verta käsissämme AKA Blood on Our Hands (1958)
1951-1960DramaFinlandThrillerWilliam MarkusQuote:
After returning home from being a prisoner of war, Captain Viktor Aaltona (Jussi Jurkka) get a job from his friend, Rolf Bergas (Tauno Palo) with whom he had served. The men trust each other until Viktor meets Rolf’s wife Astrid (Elina Pohjanpää).William Markus’s adaptation of a short novel by Mika Waltari, generally considered one of the weakest of the many films based on literary works and original screenplays by Waltari. Like Markus’s previous film, Mirjam (1957), Blood on Their Hands suffers from the near-constant use of overemphatic background, usually without much relation to what’s happening in the scene. Read More »
-
Rauni Mollberg – Tuntematon sotilas aka The Unknown Soldier (1985)
1981-1990DramaFinlandRauni MollbergWar
Mollberg’s chef d’oeuvre is this remarkable three-hours-plus adaptation of Väino Linna’s The Unknown Soldier, a monumental best-selling novel that has been called the Finnish equivalent of Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front or Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead. An earlier screen version, directed by Edvin Laine and released in 1955, is considered one of the great classics of the Finnish cinema, and was for decades the most commercially successful Finnish film ever made; Mollberg’s version, co- scripted by novelist Linna himself, was twice as expensive as any Finnish feature before it, and was a major critical and commercial success in Finland and elsewhere in Scandinavia.Read More »
-
Mikko Niskanen – Kahdeksan surmanluotia AKA Eight Deadly Shots [episodes 1–4] (1972)
1971-1980DramaFinlandMikko NiskanenTV
IMDB Plot Summary
Small-farmer Pasi shoots four policemen who have come to arrest him for raged drunkenness. Rest of the movie is a long flashback examining the events that finally leads to the tragic shooting. As time goes by, Pasi sinks gradually deeper and deeper into the poverty, gets into trouble with both police and tax officials while family arguments grow more and more serious. Based on a true story.Read More » -
Eero Sinikannel – Talvisota (1939-1940) AKA Winter War (1939-1940) (1988)
1981-1990DocumentaryEero SinikannelFinlandWar
This is a documentary about the Finnish-Soviet Winter War (Talvisota) of 1939-1940. It contains rare and never before seen footage from the official film archives (Sota-arkisto) of the Finnish army.Read More »
-
Åke Lindman & Sakari Kirjavainen – Tali-Ihantala 1944 AKA 1944: The Final Defence (2007)
2001-2010ActionÅke LindmanFinlandSakari KirjavainenWar
The Soviet army breaks through the Finnish defences on the Karelian Isthmus in June 1944, advancing with overwhelming force. Somehow, the Finnish troops must find the strength to fight back, with all odds against them. The Battle of Tali-Ihantala was the largest battle ever fought in the history of the Nordic countries. This film depicts the true events through five separate stories.Read More »




