Bock Saga

A silent tragedy set in contemporary Beijing. Three friends arrive in the city for a new life. As they strive for money and struggle in an unfulfilled love triangle, their different desires lead to theft and murderous tragedy.

Most of us think of death as something clear-cut, and that medical science has it neatly figured out. This feature documentary explodes such assumptions through its exploration of a phenomenon that blurs life and death to an unprecedented degree. In what Tibetan Buddhists call tukdam, advanced meditators die in a consciously controlled manner. Though dead according to our biomedical standards, they often stay sitting upright in meditation; remarkably, their bodies remain fresh and lifelike, without signs of decay for days, sometimes weeks after clinical death. Following ground-breaking scientific research into tukdam and taking us into intimate death stories of Tibetan meditators, the film juxtaposes scientific and Tibetan perspectives as it tries to unravel the mystery of tukdam.

Conductivity is a film about creative leadership told through the story of three young conductors at the prestigious Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland; I-Han Fu (Taiwan), Emilia Hoving (Finland) and James Kahane (France). When stepping on the podium, they are put under a magnifying glass. Conductor training, in essence, is leadership training. The film gives a unique viewpoint to follow the students, as this is the first film about conductor training at the Sibelius Academy.

Documentary about the environmental policies and tree-planting campaigns of the Chinese state, and the eucalyptus plantations of the Finnish forestry company Stora Enso in Guangxi province and their impact on the lives and livelihoods of local residents.

Director-cinematographer Mika Mattila tours the tourist attractions of the world and films inconspicuously the formulaic behaviour of the tourist masses.