Sini Hormio

It is 1595. Brutal wars have just ended in an uneasy peace between Protestant Sweden and Orthodox Russia. We focus on the spiritual defeats of two conquered Finnish brothers, one a hardened near-psychopathic war hero, the other a gentle scientist in an age with no use for such men. They find themselves in the swampy interior, demarcating the new border with a unit of sadistic Russians.

In 1980s Helsinki, a city about to burst with young energy and rebellion, two young writers determined to conquer the world fall madly in love. For Inka, the love affair puts everything in motion: she finds her own voice, publishes her first novel, and becomes a sensation. The intensity of their relationship has a different affect on Juhana, who starts to lose his grip on writing and, finally, life. At the height of the love affair Inka starts to suspect that their mad love might actually be real madness.

Jill and Joy (both 9) live in their own house like any other little girls, except that they might be a little happier than most little girls, as they get to live in their own house specifically designed for the two. One December evening a small car, barely the size of a shoebox, pulls up in front their house, and a teensy-weensy family gets out; it's the McTiny family. The family has become homeless after a road roller smashed their home. Planning to live with the girls temporarily, the family moves in with Jill and Joy but soon finds out that not all big people have good intentions towards them. Jill and Joy's Winter is based on a beloved book by the same name, written by a Finnish writer named Marjatta Kurenniemi.

The director Lauri Nurkse tells that Veijarit is a film about "arjensietokyvyttömyys" (= inability to tolerate everyday life) and about the Peter Pan complex. The main actor Mikko Leppilampi says it's about "kolkyttoistavuotiaat" (= thirtyeenagers = people of thirty behaving like teenagers). An immediate reference point is the commedia all'italiana of the 1950s and the 1960s, the black comedy often exposing the infantile stage of development of the Italian male. Saku and Ässä are anti-heroes, but we never fail to sense the humanity behind their shallow and crazy ways. Veijarit is a satire and a parody of a superficial way of life, but there is a vitality in the protagonists that we feel can lead them to a more meaningful stage of existence after the prolonged youth full of sound and fury. There is a motif of transcendence in the imagery of flying: will the balloons carry me or will they burst.

Ville, 25, is a downbeat former child star who's successfully avoided his womanizing rock 'n' roll dad for years. Everything changes when his dad moves into his flat and they both fall in love with the same American line-dancing teacher.

A new orphanage opens near Jill and Joy's house, and a boy named Pekki runs away from there. Pekki ends up living in Jill and Joy's cabin and tells the girls how bleak life is in the orphanage under the strict command of the headmistress Minna Pinna.

Dramatic comedy about having fun, throwing yourself into life without inhibition, overcoming the feeling of shame and accepting that few things in life go as planned.

Headfirst is a black comedy about a single mother with anger management problems and her teenage daughter who is always in trouble at school. With yet another school comes a new teacher and a blast from the past for the mother. Before long, an accidental pickpocket and a notoriously lousy storyteller teams up with this one dysfunctional sort of a family. Nothing is the same anymore. Headfirst is a story about missing teeth, strange friends, hidden dreams and long-gone love. And about a hare.