Susan's Writings

Finnish film industry professionals gather on the 1st of February for the Jussi Awards, the annual celebration of the best in Finnish film.

THE WINNERS of the Jussi Awards (the Finnish equivalent of the Oscars) will be announced at the Kaapelitehdas in Helsinki on 1 February. The Jussi prize was founded by the Film Journalists’ Association and first awarded on 16th November 1944, earning it the title of Europe’s oldest film award.

Jussi nominees are selected by members of Aura Film, the Association of Finnish Film Professionals and by secret ballot. The Jussi Awards cover 14 categories: best film, best director, best actress in a leading role, best actor in a leading role, best actress in a supporting role, best actor in a supporting role, best script, best cinematography, best music, best editing, best sound design, best set design, best costume design and best documentary.

The highest amount of nominations went to The Home of Dark Butterflies/Tummien perhosten koti (10 nominations), Sauna (7 nominations) and Falling Angels/Putoavia enkeleitä (4 nominations).

My bet for best script would be Three in Love (Kolmistaan), directed by Peter Lindholm. The Jussi for best direction could well go to Mika Kaurismäki for Three Wise Men (Kolme viisasta miestä). As for best film, I would go for The Home of Dark Butterflies, the story of a troubled teen and his journey discovering inner-strength and self-acceptance.

SUSAN FOURTANE – HT

Kaurismäki's film puts three men in a karaoke bar on Christmas Eve.

Mika Kaurismäki’s latest fictional feature-length film Three Wise Men brings drama with a dash of humour in a genuinely rewarding and sometimes hilarious trip through the male psyche.

A chance meeting at a hospital on Christmas Eve brings three old friends together who head out in search of a place to drown their sorrows. Matti is a soon-to-be father crippled by self-doubt. Erkki, the ladies’man, is battling an unnamed illness and is emotionally wounded by his estrangement from his young son. Rauno is an unsuccessful actor trying to reunite with his own son. Their lives have not entirely worked out the way they expected.

The characters manage to bully the owner of a karaoke bar into letting them in, setting the stage for unexpected breakdowns, emotional revelations and possible redemption.

The three principal performers, Kari Heiskanen, Pertti Sveholm and Timo Torikka, were heavily involved in how the script took shape.

During the filming, Kaurismäki relied on the actors to shape the film through improvisation. “The idea for Three Wise Men was born in discussions with the three main actors. Director John Cassavetes and his way of working with improvisation came up, and soon after we decided to experiment and make a film inspired by his method,” says Kaurismäki.

Filmgoers are guaranteed to be left with a sense of satisfaction after viewing Kaurismäki’s amusing drama about masculinity.

See information about screenings www.finnkino.fi 

Susan Fourtane – HT
Mikko Stig – Image

Flixation is all about no-budget underground cinema, video mash up, amateur film art, performance and music. The creators of this underground cinema collective, Duncan Reekie, Clive Shawn and Caroline Kennedy, have been involved in underground films for the past 20 years.

Believing in underground cinema, Flixation, in collaboration with Art Contact, AV-Arkki, HIAP and Zodiak, brings the origins of cinema and its essence to the 21st century. The magic of the music hall and the variety theatre come along to show us a kind of cinema we have never seen before, “It is like what cinema used to be,” says Reekie who will be performing during a screening.

The audience will be taken back in time to the days of the cabaret. The films will be projected on the walls and the ceiling, creating a magical and unique atmosphere for the participants.

Susan Fourtane – HT

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.

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

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.”

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

Marja Pyykkö´s film project won second prize in the Nordic Talents pitching

Marja Pyykkö believes that loving life and a positive attitude towards it is a healthy base for making a film.

competition for graduating Nordic film students. The event was held in Copenhagen on 4 to 6 September.

The prize winning film If I Stay It Will Be Double tells the story of 15-year-old Emilia who is always responsible and well behaved. When she meets Venni (also 15) she finally dares to break the shackles of her family. But soon the girls’ friendship becomes a similar shackle. Emilia has to dare to break free of Venni as well to find her own path.

“I myself experienced the life as a teenager very violently, the bond to my family was strong so the outbreak was also full of conflict and mixed feelings,” director and co-writer Marja Pyykkö says.

The film, based on true and lived feelings, has been developing for three years to finally come out like a big burst of energy, as Pyykkö says. “If I Stay It Will Be Double is a very personal project because the story is based on my own experiences as a teenager in Helsinki. We have been using my personal diaries as writing material.”

The script is written by Laura Suhonen and the film will be produced by Piia Nokelainen for Solar Films. “The second prize is not so much money but it gives important visibility to our project and helps us move along with the development of the story.”

On Nordic Talent

The aim of Nordic Talents, funded by Nordisk Film og TV Fond, is to introduce graduating students from the Nordic film schools to the Nordic producers and financiers and, equally important, to give the producers and financiers the opportunity to meet the future talent.

“It’s a great forum for new filmmakers to meet the important people from all the Nordic countries, from production companies to TV and Film Foundation people. The pitching competition and the workshop were very educative,” says Pyykkö.

Pyykkö wants to show the teenage girls not as victims of time and place but as strong characters who make important decisions, even if they are not ready to make them. She wants to show that even if we have made mistakes in our own teen years, it doesn’t mean that our life will be marred for good. “There is forgiveness and growth in this world. I don’t want to teach a lesson to anybody, just to tell this story as it is,” she remarks and adds:

“Nothing is too much or too hard for the girls when they are together. Our story is not about two girls forming a lesbian relationship. It is the friendship and the feeling of power of what they are in love with. ”

Pyykkö believes life is not scrapbooks and gymnastics for today’s girls; it is time to make a rough and realistic film about girls, sexuality and violence. “Strong women do not spring out of nowhere. It takes a lot of hard choices and mistakes but it’s still all worth it!”

Susan Fourtane  – Helsinki Times

Films in the Midnight Sun

Since Aki and Mika Kaurismäki founded the Midnight Sun Film Festival in 1985, every summer film fans flock to the land 100 km north of the Artic Circle where the sun doesn’t set for several weeks.

SODANKYLÄ, a small and quiet town in Finnish Lapland, welcomed film lovers to the 23rd Midnight Sun Film Festival to spend five days of twenty four hours of an unforgettable film marathon.

From 11^th to 15^th June Finnish and international guests shared life and work experiences in morning discussions with festival director Peter von Bagh.

Finnish actor legend Lasse Pöysti was warmly received by the audience.

“Pöysti simply has always had a special ability to decode the heartbeat of Finnish mentality,” von Bagh expressed.

American actor Seymour Cassel is still bubbling with life after a long acting career started in 1959 with John Cassavetes’s improvisational film Shadows.

The director of 5 Oscars winner One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and 8 Oscars winner Amadeus, Miloš Forman, is seen by young film makers as an example of someone who walks a path of success despite having lived difficult times in his native Czekoslovakia.  

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a Czech film,” he said. The communist party was my big nurse. For you Americans it’s literature, for me it’s my life experience,  what you are allowed to say, what you are allowed to do what you are allowed to express, to think.”  

 “Be faithful to yourself and tell the truth without being boring,” is the message Forman gives to the new generations.

“School doesn’t teach you talent, opinion or vision but can inspire you. In school you have time to develop your own vision, you can do foolish things and many times you have to do a hundred foolish things before developing your own way.”

Andrei Konchalovsky reveals himself as a witty screenwriter and director who employs a simple but powerful language that enables the spectator to reach the idea of the film through consciousness as well as the heart.

He values contemplation as a way of developing good thinking.

“The cinema makes you think through images not through sound. Cinema can convey emotions through images. The most expensive thing in visual effect is human face, because is human face which transmits and transcend from the dead screen to the live heart of yours.”

Other guests included French Serge Bozon, Estonian Veiko Ounpuu and Swedish Ruben Östlund.

Finnish guests included the directors Mari Rantasila, Mikka Soini, Jouko Aaltonen and the actors Ria Katja, Kari Väänänen and Anni-Kristiina Juusto.

Directed by Yakov Protazanov’s, 1921 silent film Aelita based on the Soviet sci-fi novel by Aleksei Tolstoy on which the Finnish contemporary performance group Cleaning Women plays the score was a pearl this year.

For more information on films and guests see www.msfilmfestival.fi

SUSAN FOURTANE

HELSINKI TIMES