Tapio Liinoja

Two diverse families meet for the first time over Christmas dinner. The evening goes off the rails right from the start when the male host couple reveal a closely guarded secret: there's also a hostess in the house, and she's very pregnant! Of course, the frantic group of relatives don't take the news lightly and demand the paternity to be confirmed - which is no simple task. A series of misunderstandings drives the Christmas guests to the brink of a nervous breakdown, and as the evening progresses, Santa Claus himself is forced to look in the mirror. Their Christmas together seems doomed to failure until, to everyone's surprise, the evening culminates in a heart-melting Christmas miracle.

6.3/10

Aino, a pilot intern in her small plane, is assigned on a mission to locate a mysterious lost space probe that has fallen down to earth near the arctic circle. Events make an absurd, surreal, maybe a dadaist turn after which to reach her objectives, Aino and her peers are obliged to search for the answer to the mysteries of the modern human condition. Thus follows a satirical, antimodernist continuum of monologues, mixed-media footage and introductions of modern subjectivity. The film is a flight through the darker sides of fossil-fueled European rationalism, shedding light on techno-capitalist-individualist age of modern alienation, hauntological nostalgies of imagined futures, the profound problematics of translating human communication, the post-human sides of Jean Sibelius – and finally – the reindeers of the north.

Digging up the memory of the Finnish Civil War in 1918, Grey Wolf tells a historical story with a modern twist. When Viktor Stark, a peaceful writer of the conservative Whites, finds a wounded enemy soldier hiding for his life, Stark’s values and loyalty are measured against each other. Will he choose a higher moral or otherness? The answer is revealed in the final scene that turns the whole world around. Grey Wolf is set in history, but truly, it tells about us.

7.3/10

The movie version of the 2016 adventure series Heroes of the Baltic Sea.

In 2017 Finland celebrates 100 years of independence. The famous philosopher Bruno is curing his writers' block in Lapland, when he gets an invitation to the President's Grand Ball in Helsinki. The railway systems are frozen and he misses the only plane, but the Laplander Jallu agrees to drive him 1200 km (745 miles) south.

7/10

Three delegates from Sweden, Norway and Finland are gathered in Lapland to decide which piece of art should be placed at the border of their countries. But the committee is in for a surprise… The delegates are faced with the challenge of making a democratic decision: is there something they can agree on to represent a true Nordic movement?

6.2/10

A movie inspired by a true crime - the coldblooded Heino double murder, committed by a group of teenagers - that shocked Finland in 2001.

3.6/10

Raid is based on detective stories by author Harri Nykänen and made into a 12-part series. The story tells about a police officer who has been investigating white-collar crimes is shot dead in a TV-studio. Another policeman takes his own life at his summer home. A young woman, an executive with a powerful electronics concern, also commits suicide. Her embittered father suspects foul play and he invites Raid, the woman's former boyfriend to "make inquiries". Meanwhile, the police are looking for the first killer - and the trail leads inexorably to Raid. Very soon, however, they realise that the guilty party is somewhere else, and the interests of the police and the avenging angel Raid converge. The unholy alliance shows that even those with morals may, to some extent, use immoral means to achieve an end. The Raid series was voted the best TV-programme in Finland year 2000. Tapio Piirainen received an award for best script and best direction. The series was also honoured with a prestigious film award and the Finnish Whodunnit Society's award. The music from the series sold gold and platinum.

8.5/10

Psychiatric patient Elmeri knows about the existence of a gold treasure in Finnish Lapland, hidden there by his late father who somehow managed to capture it from withdrawing German troops on the last days of WW2. His openly gay nurse helps him escape from the mental institution, and the two men slowly find their way up north to reach the gold. On their way, the odd couple meets a cavalcade of even odder characters.

7.3/10

A rustic comedy about a small-town bowling alley entrepreneur who learns that being scammed is not the end of the world.

8.3/10
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