Documentaries

Child No. 182 is a documentary film about child protection practices in Finland in the 60s and 70s. It tells the story of a little girl who is placed from orphanages to summer colonies and foster homes. The film is based on the reports of social service officials and other authorities and is shot mainly on 8mm film. Director Camilla Roos makes a deep dive into her own childhood from her birth to when she was 8 years old.

How do artists view their own work? Veikko Aaltonen’s documentary Not Withholding Anything From You takes us straight into the heart of creativity in the company of artists from different fields and generations.

From singer-turned-filmmaker Anna Eriksson to cinematographer Esa Vuorinen, from painter-sculptor Jarmo Mäkilä to actor Hannu-Pekka Björkman, these artists allow the audience to follow their work as they reveal what intuition, inspiration, and love and hate mean for their art. Celebrating the various forms of passion and creative work, the film presents a compelling case for the significance of art.

The Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022 turned the European worldview upside down. In Parikkala, a small town in Eastern Finland near the Russian border, this soon becomes very real as the iron curtain lowers again on the Finno-Russian border. The locals are faced both with a future that is unknown and the heavy historical baggage of the borderland.

The emotionally broken Sámis finally get back their ancestral heritage that has been taken away from them. The film director Suvi faces the collective pains and starts to break the outside image of the Sámis, not only for herself but for the wellbeing of the whole nation.

The film is set in the Museum world in a turning point. Where the Sámis have to redetermine their relationship to identity, the national museums have to deal with their colonialist history. Suvi follows repatriation processes in different stages. The Finnish National Museum Sámi collection is returning home but the holy drums are stuck in the museums around Europe.

Suvi takes the audience behind the scenes of the museum world where the debate of the othering and cultural inequality is causing inevitable change.

A short documentary about sibling violence and monster of aggression told through animation, live-action scenes and archival material.

Tom of Finland (1920–1991) is arguably one of the world’s most celebrated and influential creators of queer-erotic art. TOM House the VR Experience is a documentary virtual reality piece that immerses visitors into the legendary Los Angeles residence of Tom, where he lived over the last decade of his life. The VR-piece features three thematic tours around the house guided by Mr. Durk Dehner, the co-founder and president of Tom of Finland Foundation, and a virtual art gallery, which presents Tom’s work like never experienced before.

Lynx Man is a documentary about pensioner Hannu’s entrancing journey towards finding a connection with the Eurasian lynx hiding in the forests. With his trail cameras, Hannu opens a gateway into the Finnish nature and towards a genuine connection with environment.

Can Hannu save the Eurasian lynx, or is it in fact nature who ultimately saves the man?