Archive for October 2008
Annual short and documentary film festival opens in Helsinki
The Gardener-still by Erica Weiste.
For the 25th time the vastly expanded Kettupäivät (Fox Days) will present the most recent Finnish short films in the heart of Helsinki.
Since 1984 Finnish Film Contact has organised the Fox Days Film Festival. In the beginning it was exclusively for professional filmmakers who wanted to find a way for short films and documentaries to be screened. This year, 120 films from the 257 submissions received will take part in the competitions.
Leena Närekangas, the director of the festival, tells it was in 1988 when the name Kettupäivät was used for the first time. “In those days there were two children’s animations with a fox as a character in them. A fox medal was made and given to the film that was screaming out loud instead of whispering,” says Närekangas. By this Närekangas refers to films that are particularly thought provoking. “Even though we don’t give the fox medals anymore, we’re still looking for films with the same principles as in the early 1980s,” she says.
| 5-8 NovemberFor more information and programme in English:
www.kettupaivat.fi or kettupaivat@elokuvakontakti.fi Cinema Andorra: Eerikinkatu 11, www.andorra.fi Tickets: €3, children: €2, 10 screenings: €20 |
Today, Kettupäivät awards the best short films in professional and student categories as well as the best documentary. The best new Finnish animation will be selected and awarded with the Hinku and Vinku prizes.
For the 13th time the festival stages a special feature called FoxOff. Films in this competition must not exceed three minutes and they deal with a specialised topic each year. This year’s subject is Last Time. People who are not professionals or film students but who are taking part in media workshops also have their productions screened at this festival. “Anybody who is interested in making films has the chance to participate in a film competition,” explains Närekangas.
The new filmmakers
Although students’ films started to be screened in the early 1980s, it was not until 2001 that they got their own series. Nowadays, students’ fiction, documentaries, animations and experimental films are screened, offering professional quality. “The quality of students’ films in Finland is very high. Professional actors take part in them and the film schools use professional equipment,” says Närekangas.
Besides the competitions, the festival offers special programmes with music videos, contemporary films and the best of Nordic short and documentary films.
Susan Fourtane – HT
Kettupäivät – Image
Swedish director wins Nordic Film Prize
You, the Living is the result of seven years of meticulous work in Roy Andersson’s Studio 24 in Stockholm.
The brilliant film You, the Living focuses on life, death and the fragile yearnings of mankind. With its unique visual style and narrative rhythm this everyday symphony challenges our preconceived attitudes towards film.
Roy Andersson’s tragic comedy You, the Living had its premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2007. The film was selected as Sweden’s candidate for an Oscar the same year, won three Guldbagge awards in 2008 (Best Film, Best Director and Best Script), was awarded a silver prize at the Chicago International Film Festival and was later nominated for a European Film Award. Now it has also won the Nordic Film Prize.
You, the Living is the result of seven years of meticulous work in Stockholm, where the most visually aware Swedish director carefully crafted 49 of his 50 living tableaux. Shot with his distinctive monochromatic colour scheme in greys and greens, the characters representing the whole spectrum of life live in an absurd and unsympathetic world where humiliation is tolerated. “You, the Living is about the human being, about our greatness and miserableness, joy, sorrow, self-confidence and anxiety. It is simply a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy about us,” says Andersson about his film. “The characters are very comical and sad at the same time, but life is a tragicomedy,” he says. “You, the Living is a film about the vulnerability of human beings.”
| The Nordic Film Prizewas presented to the two prize winners in conjunction with the Nordic Council’s Session in Helsinki on 28 October. It is worth €46,958.
You, the Living available on DVD. |
Influence and award
The director, who confesses to a stronger artistic influence from painting, music or poetry than film, brought to his mind the works of German expressionist painters when making You, the Living. “By using abstraction and dream sequences for the first time, I felt totally free,” says the director who intends to further exploit this feeling in his next project.
The prize has great significance for the winner. “Receiving this prestigious award means a great deal to me. I believe there is every reason to acknowledge the Nordic Council for its endeavours to raise film to a high cultural level,” he says.
“Instead of telling just one story in a conventional linear style, You, the Living is made up of carefully composed sequences from a bizarre world which is simultaneously sad and surrealistically funny. These humorous, tragic tableaux show our best and worst sides, make us laugh and force us to think,” explains the awards jury.
Apart from the honour, the prize is of very practical importance to the director, who will use it as an opportunity to prompt research and writing on his new film where he plans on working with new techniques.
Susan Fourtane – HT
Nordic Council Film – Image
Protected: Scripts
Kindness through art
Päivi Uljas, Tibetan Monk
A group of Helsinki based artists manifest that sadly people have neither edge nor interest for being nice anymore.
QUESTIONING kindness is interesting. According to Aristotle’s book two in Rhetoric, kindness is one of the emotions which is defined as being “helpfulness toward someone in need, not in return of anything, not for the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the person helped.”
The story behind the paintings
Tensions in traditionally Tibetan areas of what is now western China have captured the eye of Päivi Uljas. “Tibetan Monk is telling about a monk who has raised his hands to fight. Dalai Lama is against violence, but among monks patience is running out,” says Uljas describing her painting.
Uljas painting Nurse is a domestic subject. Last year, Finnish nurses were on strike. “People see nurses self-denying and always helpful. My nurse is saying: No more, not at this price!” says the artist.
For Johanna Sinkkonen, thoughts on kindness and love have been the inspiration for her artwork. She feels that people are more comfortable with superficial relationships, those that go well with their independent life-style rather than with a loving and caring relationship where true love is the protagonist. The kind of love that is difficult to meet.
“Those hot, seductive, dangerous, restless little butterflies are more tempting than just one big one. In this society nothing is ever enough. There is always a new view from the window. However, are we using binoculars instead of a magnifying glass? Are we doing that on purpose or accidentally? Do we choose to be blind to those big butterflies we so rarely meet?” Sinkkonen wonders.
Her works are full of bright joyful colours, butterflies, flowers and love. They scream what should have been rather than what it was. Sinkkonen chose names of men for her paintings.
Heli Vepsäläinen’s Series of dirty games are mixed media representing what people don’t see or don’t hear, telling people are simply not kind.
Minja Revonkorpi thinks people obey orders too much. Their trust in the society is blind and they don’t realise that every single person is of equal value, that his opinion is valid. “It doesn’t matter if you are a politician or unemployed, you have the right to speak out, and your opinion should matter. In my works the individual persons symbolise a significant attitude towards the society” Revonkorpi says.
Her acrylics and oil on canvas are expressions of the contradiction between kind and naughty, which Revonkorpi bases her works on. Her paintings are an expression of bright, vivid colours and her characters an invitation to a profound thinking.
We’re Not Nice Anymore! tells about sensitivities, a need to give and receive kindness and love as much as we need to breathe. It tells about simple needs and feelings from the soul and heart. It opens our eyes to see the wonderful world we would have if only we were willing to be kinder.
Other artists participating in the exhibition are Risto Laasimo, Ritva Larsson, Kristiina Parviainen.
The exhibition We’re not Nice Anymore! is at the ANT Gallery in Töölö until 24 October.
ANT Gallery, Topeliksenkatu 3B, Töölö, Helsinki
www.antgallery.net
Opening hours:
Tue – Fri 12 – 17, Sat – Sun 12 – 16
Susan Fourtane – HT
Finnish artists in Valencia
Pirjo Hassinen. The girl in the yellow stap
The Art Career exhibition consists of different art works from 20 Finnish artists. It has been organised by the AVA Galleria, located in Helsinki, and run by Helena and Edson Cardoso.
“The gallery differentiates from the others as it is the only gallery in Finland that organises art exchanges between national and international galleries and museums,” explains Helena Cardoso.
| Ava Galleriawww.avagalleria.comPohjoinen Rautatiekatu 17 B 8, HelsinkiOpen Tuesday-Sunday from 14:00 to 18:00
Grupo Forja www.grupoforja.es |
The AVA Galleria has been organising art exchanges between Finland and South American and European countries since 2003. The project of this particular exhibition exchange started in 2007, when Egle Oddo organised a photography exhibition that brought a group of artists from Valencia to Finland. “Now it is time for Finnish artists to pay them a visit in return,” says Cardoso.
Art exchange is certainly something to be promoted and supported. It is important for Finnish artists to let the world know about the sensitivity and warmth that is expressed in their artworks.
Susan Fourtane – HT
Pirjo Hassinen – Image
