Laura Birn
The Lapland tundra. Rupi is a young miner who fills his days by traficking in illegal pills, drinking, and dropping coins in a slot machine. After his friend is murdered, Rupi realises that he loves his friend’s widow. But the mine owner wants her too. The violence becomes a spectacle, the tragedy comic, the tundra cold, the people degenerate and hope ephemeral, like a star shooting through the sky. But even in this world, hope briefly rears its head.
Group of old friends gather in a summer villa to celebrate a surprise birthday party for Mitzi, who is the dramatic focal point of the group. The weekend starts ominously when Mitzi does not respond well to the surprise party. It turns out that Mitzi has just filed for divorce and has been looking forward to a peaceful weekend. The tense situation takes a new turn when Mitzi's best friend brings her new boyfriend for a visit, who happens to be a Swedish film star. Familiar surroundings and the old rituals get to the core of the group and make them forget their adulthood. Revelations, not meant to harm the balance, make them reassess their past as well as their present.
Black drama-comedy about elementary school teacher Kaisa who has lost control of her life.
The thousand year saga of The Foundation, a band of exiles who discover that the only way to save the Galactic Empire from destruction is to defy it.
Year 1915. Helene Schjerfbeck lives as a forgotten artist with her elderly mother in the countryside. It has been years since the last exhibit, and Helene continues to paint only because of her passion. Everything changes when art dealer finds Helen and her 159 wonderful paintings - and wants to organize a big private exhibit. However, Helen's turning point comes only when she is introduced to Einar Reuter. Young Einar is a forester, art enthusiast, and a passionate admirer of Helene's work. He becomes Helen's trusted and lover.
Confimation is a coming-of-age film about a Protestant Confirmation camp on a summer’s week, set in the archipelago of Helsinki. Aliisa is the intellectually confident non-believer, Jenna is the queen bee and Panu is the scared bird. The experience of these teenagers is affected by Tiina, a young and eager priest.
A woman wakes up on a beach tied in a plastic press wearing only underwear and high heels. “Not again”, she sighs and decides to track down the enemy and strike back. She gets a companion from an older woman, who has been pushed to the borders of society. During their journey through classical cinematic landscapes these nameless women from different generations struggle to connect and understand each other’s perspectives while their passion for men and male attention gets in away.
Eero’s career as an author is spiraling down: he just can’t get started with his new novel. The ambitious actor Pihla is about to get her international break. Neither of them is willing to sacrifice their career even though their relationship is doing worse than ever. Void is a comedy-drama about the price of success and the agony of failure, and about situations where your partner just doesn’t get it.
When a teenage couple runs away to be together, the extraordinary gift they possess unleashes powerful forces intent on dividing them forever.
Three men meet on a night train on the border of Finland and Sweden. All three are concealing something, and a sudden confrontation amongst them leads to disastrous consequences, with two of them being forced to make a joint decision.
Norway, 1942, during World War II. After being separated from her family, Esther, a young Jewish girl from Trondheim, arrives at an isolated farm where she must assume a new identity in order to survive the Nazi persecution…
Alma is a young ambitious woman working in her own small company in Barcelona. She is happy in life but constantly dreams of a bigger project that she could work on together with her friends. A project that would bring in their first million. The opportunity finally arises and they buy an old building with a plan to renovate it into luxury apartments. But how to get rid of old tenants without hurting their feelings and without losing your own morals? Furthermore, how to survive from a free fall when you lose all you have? Alma de Sant Pere is a film about dreams, friendships and human values.
In 1980's Helsinki, a city about to burst with young energy and rebellion, two young writers determined to conquer the world fall madly in love. For Inka, the love affair puts everything in motion: she finds her own voice, publishes her first novel - and becomes a sensation. The intensity of their relationship has a different affect on Juhana, who starts to lose his grip on writing and, finally, life. At the height of the love affair Inka starts to suspect that their mad love might actually be real madness.
A portrait of the brilliant, extravagant Kristina of Sweden, queen from age six, who fights the conservative forces that are against her ideas to modernize Sweden and who have no tolerance for her awakening sexuality.
Armi Ratia is the woman behind the legendary design company Marimekko and a worldwide celebrity. A theatre company has taken on the task of trying to portray the life and work of this complex person. The sets mainly consist of the well-known patterns that we all have grown to love. Armi is a brave, risk-taking businesswoman and her passion for her company repeatedly takes its toll on her employees, finances and family. The company grows while Armi's personal life is shaken by suicide attempts and turbulence. In Armi Alive!, Oscar-nominated film producer and director Jörn Donner portrays a fascinating woman with fervent ideas about the new Finnish man, her company, fabrics and clothes.
Kiia and Lauri, speeding toward the hospital overnight. Kiia in pain, holding the wheel with one hand and another in his stomach - the birth has started ahead of schedule. Surprisingly, the vehicle collides with something. Kiia fright and brakes, the car swerves before coming to a stop. Lauri rises to the car to check the situation and says he did not see anything. Kiia give birth to a healthy child in the hospital and befriends Hannah with. Hanna's husband has been in the same region hit by a car and drove onto the driver fled from the scene.
A couple expecting their first child discover an unnerving difference between themselves and the couple living in the flat below them who are also having a baby.
Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.
An comedy set in 1960s Helsinki. The story revolves around Elsa, a resolute hatmaker who is in complete control of her life. Besides running her shop, she sometimes doubles as a fortune teller. When Jan, a Czechoslovakian jazz musician and Elsa's old lover comes to town to perform at a "peace and friendship festival", her well-organised life is jolted out of balance.
Neo-Nazi falls in love with a woman who has a black son and finds himself fighting with conflicting feelings.
A Finnish-Norwegian love story with an unexpected shape and development. Shot in Oslo, Helsinki, Istanbul and Berlin. The film focuses on showing the actual moments that lead to getting to know one another, building a relationship and to breaking up. The film takes part in Kaisa’s attempt of getting involved with two different men that look almost exactly the same, questioning where the thin line is between someone potentially being the love of your life or not. Shooting the film with the approach of a workshop and closely involving the actors allows the film to take shape as a unique, unpredictable cinematic expression touching the basis and complexity of human behavior.
Allide experienced The Great Terror under Stalin’s regime, and decades after her hometown people were deported to Siberia, she lives alone in an isolated house. One night, she finds a young woman in her yard – Zara has just escaped from the claws of the Russian mafia that held her as a sex slave. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in unearthing each other’s motives and gradually, and their stories merge into one, revealing the tragedy of a family during the cruelest years in Estonian history.
Naked Harbour is a movie about Finnish love in the year 2011. It is a story about people who seek love and acceptance at any cost. During one winter week all its characters face something irreversible.
This rollicking sports comedy from Finnish director Markku Polonen follows the exploits of Seppo 'Sladi' Pesonen, an ex-top-tiered race car driver now reduced to instructing students at a driving school. To relieve the monotony of this undesired career, Pesonen builds "Team Susan," a road rally team based at Pekkarinen's Garage in the Finnish countryside. Soon, Sladi's nephew Luumu arrives from Helsinki and learns of the team, his enthusiasm skyrockets and he hops on board with the assist of mechanic Suko. Yet the men encounter Machiavellian sabotage at the hands of the vile Torppo, the owner of the lot that contains Pekkarinen's Garage, who is determined to interfere with the plans of Team Susan.
Noa is a young slacker who prefers to spend his days smoking weed. Together with his friends, he meets an old hippie, who is interested in rekindling his past passion of psychedelic trips and mind expansion.
8 Days to Premiere is a love story set in the world of theater. Romeo and Juliet is to be the season´s grand premiere. Noora, the female lead in the play, breaks her leg at the kickoff party, and Laura, an actress who due to her debilitating stage fright has ended up as the prompter for the play, gets a chance of a lifetime. There are 8 days to the premiere.
Hundreds of years ago in Lapland, a little boy named Nikolas loses his family in an accident. The villagers decide to look after the orphaned boy together. Once a year - at Christmas - Nikolas moves to a new home. To show his gratitude, Nikolas decides to make toys for the children of the families as good-bye presents. Over the years, Nikolas's former adoptive families become many, and soon almost every house has presents on its doorstep on Christmas morning. At thirteen, Nikolas is sent to live and work with Iisakki, a grumpy old carpenter, who forbids Nikolas to continue making presents for Christmas. Gradually, however, Nikolas wins Iisakki's trust. Together they begin to look after the Christmas traditional that Nikolas has begun. When the aged Iisakki has to leave Nikolas and move away, the tradition of Christmas presents is once again at risk. Thankfully, Nikolas comes up with a solution that brings children joy every Christmas, even continuing to today.
When their bootlegging father ends up in jail, four twenty-something brothers need money to pay his debts to local crooks. Next, their 9-year-old half-sister is dumped on their doorstep by her prostitute mother. A karaoke set helps reveal that the little girl is quite a singer, just as a talent contest for children is coming up on national television offering more than enough money to the winner. If only the kid weren't so hopelessly shy...
Bahman, Mahtab, Ramin and Donya Mehdipour are enjoying a perfect summer in a small Finnish town. Their routines are fractured by a negative decision on their application for asylum by the Finnish Immigration Service. But life must go on and the 13-year-old Ramin is about to enter an entirely new school, junior high. The Mehdipours use their last chance to appeal but continue their everyday lives, fuelled by their exceptionally positive outlook and attitude.
(Originally Pieni Sydän) The Finnish short film is a tragic tale of a young boy who falls in love with a dangerous older girl.
