An Underground Bird

For 18-year-old Finnish–Kosovan Fatu, a simple visit to the grocery store feels as nerve-racking as a lunar expedition: for the first time in his life, he’s wearing makeup in public. Luckily his best friend Rai, a young woman on the spectrum of autism, is there to ferociously support him through the voyage.

The three men enjoy the evening at a bar whose fate is threatened by pandemic restrictions. Bartender Heikki offers discussion help to his friend Risto, who works in the first line of healthcare, and who has just finished a difficult shift. The evening gets a new twist when a stranger looking for a mobile phone charger pops in and refuses to leave.

Tundra of Lapland, Finland. Rupi, a young man who fills his days dealing and drinking, works in a mine hoping to raise enough money to escape the desolate village where he lives.

The film is about a show dancer, Kristal, 40+ years, blond hair woman, who with a Lada car goes around small pubs and entertains people. First she seems a bit ridiculous, self-sufficient and naive, a potential victim, an circus animal, but she comes out as something else. Kristal is a weird saint, who takes to bear all the hate, despair, lust and confusion around her and through that gives people a momentary relief.

An anthology of one-minute films created by 51 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.

Divorced, middle-aged Matti picks up Maša near the Finnish-Russian border. Maša was waiting for a different man called Jukka, but agrees to go with Matti when he claims he is a friend of Jukka's.

Minna is taking driving lessons. The teacher starts to behave inappropriately.

A young woman recovering from a suicide attempt arrives in a war-torn city and gets a job as a waitress at a local bar. Jeanne befriends the author of an unpopular drunkard, but fate has other plans for their relationship .

A movie about a movie that was never made.

Running in three parallel images in black & white and colour, and complemented with an evocative soundtrack, Biblion opens the dense and layered heart of the book. Fluid shapes of marbled covers, varied fibres of paper, dissolving appearances in printing ink are only some of the elements in a surreal world of enchanting visual narrative.

In 18 minutes, a lone creator combines introspective landscapes, old devices and haunting memories into a whimsical symphony. Amidst Finnish panoramas, near the Russian border, broken video recorders flicker with melancholic sci-fi. Nature is a silent witness, while fragmented memories intertwine to create a visual collage that conveys a quiet sense of introspection.

Peippo’s film rolls from 1974 with “tourist” written on the package lead to a mysterious journey through Suomenlinna.

An introspective documentary that connects the cinema space and the ritual of watching with memories and dreams.

Time inevitably moves from past to future, passing the present moment. Mankind encloses to time its marks, stains and ruins. On the verge of vast changes time acts abnormally. It leaks, folds and fractures, allowing things belonging elsewhere, to the otherworldly, to
permeate itself. In the 8mm film the Helsinki Olympic Stadium represents a historical paradigm shift. Completed in 1938 the building outlines pure functionalist architecture and stands as a landmark for optimistic utopia and the oblivion on man’s neglect of history.