Rosaliina Paavilainen

ICELAND (Nighttime) explores the collective mindset of anxiety and hope in epic, post-catastrophic landscapes. The video engages the most fundamental of human experiences: love, hope, fear, solitude and togetherness. Set in Icelandic landscapes that are romantic yet inhospitable, ICELAND (Nighttime) deals with the sensibility that we are close to the end of the world as we know it.

70-year-old Timo makes the most of his short ride to work. Speeding up on a bicycle ends up in a ditch, but the adrenaline rush leaves a feeling of pleasure.

Those Who Kept the Light is a project loosely based on stories of female lighthouse keepers in Scandinavia. The project explores our co-dependent relationship to the sea in context of queer and feminist maritime narratives. The narratives are often told through the voices and context of more-than human others, such as the wind, a prawn or a lighthouse. The sea, the wind, the ocean are seen as entities with consciousness and a voice. Within the wider framework of climate emergency and the role of the fragile ecosystems of the ocean, the project explores the collective mind-set of imagination, hope and imagined spaces of solace and power through and within epic and barren Nordic landscape.

The life of the main character goes off the rails when she realizes that she is being rewarded for her youth and beauty in ways that exceed her other achievements. While trying to find a time machine for her life, she drifts deeper into patriarchal beauty rituals, building her identity and happiness on her appearance.

This experimental documentary delves into the director’s own mother-daughter relationship, featuring real-life dialogues between the director and her mother. The narrative unfolds through static, color-framed images of the mother’s empty apartment, capturing a sense of absence and reflection. These intimate conversations reveal layers of shame, resentment, and longing shaped by alcoholism and custody, creating a raw and deeply personal portrait of difficult love. Created as a Bachelor of Fine Arts graduation project, the work was exhibited in the Young Artists 2019 exhibition at Kunsthalle Helsinki.