Hanna Hovitie

How does it feel to be a procrastinating perfectionist who is afraid of the dark, while living in a place where darkness consumes half the year? What is space anxiety and its relation to fear of infinity? All this and more is revealed in Hanna Hovitie's visually innovative comedy, framed as a circle as opposed to the usual filmic square. A love letter to all the people who, like the author, feel they don't belong.

In peaceful swampland, a solitary man wades through long grass, crawling carefully through the water. Unable to fit in with the world of humans, Misu prefers to spend his time with cold-blooded reptiles, caring for them with extraordinary empathy. Solitude is his way of survival but also his biggest enemy.

A young taxidermist is fascinated by ravens, paying considerate attention to their dead bodies. Her work on the birds is simultaneously a careful study of anatomical connections and a kind of service toward the resurrection of this mythical creature from the realm between life and death. Through detailed, pulsating black-and-white images and a sparingly intense soundtrack, a charged atmosphere unfolds between craftsmanship, imagination and poetry.