Finnish Film Resources
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Finland
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ISBN: 9781841506173Date: 2012-08-15Directory of World Cinema: Finland provides historical and cultural overviews of the country's cinema. Over the course of their contributions to this volume, scholars from a variety of disciplines construct a collective argument that complicates the dominant international view of Finnish cinema as small-scale industry dominated by realist art-house films. The contributors approach the topic from a variety of angles, covering genre, art, and commercial films; independent productions; blockbuster cinema; and Finnish cinema's industrial and historical contexts. While paying heed to Finland's cultural specificity, the contributors also explore Finnish cultural industries within the broader context of international political, economic, artistic, and industrial developments. Together, they skillfully depict an ever-changing national film culture that plays a dynamic role in the global cinematic landscape. -
Finnish Cinema
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ISBN: 9781137576507Date: 2016-10-17Finnish Cinema presents an expert analysis of the transnational aspects of Finnish cinema throughout its history. This study focuses on how small nation cinemas have faced the dilemma of contributing to the construction and maintenance of national culture and identity, while responding to audience tastes largely shaped by foreign cinemas. With Finland's intriguing political placement between East and West, along with the high portion of film history preserved in Finnish archives, this thoroughly contextualized multidisciplinary analysis of Finnish film history serves as an illuminating case study of the transnational aspects of small nation cinemas. -
Guide to the Cinema of Sweden and Finland
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ISBN: 0313303770Date: 2000-03-30Both well known and other important but less known persons and films are included in the reference work which spans the silent film era to the 1990s. The volume is divided into two sections, one devoted to the Swedish entries and the other to the Finnish entries. An introduction to each section overviews the developments and trends in that particular country's film industry. Organized by country, the annotated entries are alphabetically arranged and include brief bibliographies and filmographies. -
Nordic Explorations
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ISBN: 9781864620559Date: 2000-03-01Nordic Explorations: Film before 1930 includes 20 original essays written for the 1999 retrospective of Nordic cinema at Le Giomate del Cinema Muto in Italy. The anthology brings together some of the leading current research on early cinema in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and includes essays on such major figures in Nordic cinema as Dreyer, Christensen, Sjostrom, and Stiller. This anthology also contains studies of the Norwegian travel genre, Nordic animated film, the relation of Nordic cinema to German and Russian film, the development of educational cinema and industrial film, as well as in-depth studies of individual films, filmmakers, national styles, and the relation of the medium to other forms of popular entertainment. -
Nordic Film Cultures and Cinemas of Elsewhere
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ISBN: 1474438059Date: 2019-10-21Nordic Film Cultures and Cinemas of Elsewhere introduces a new concept to Nordic film studies as well as to other small national, transnational and world cinema traditions. Examining overlooked 'elsewheres', the book presents Nordic cinemas as international, cosmopolitan, diasporic and geographically dispersed, from their beginnings in the early silent period to their present 21st-century dynamics. Exploring both canonical works by directors like Ingmar Bergman and Lars von Trier, as well as a wide range of unknown or overlooked narratives of movement, synthesis and resistance, the book offers a new model of inquiry into a multi-varied Scandinavian cultural lineage, and into small nation and pan-regional world cinemas. -
Nordic National Cinemas
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ISBN: 9780415081948Date: 1998-02-20Nordic National Cinemas explores the film histories and cultures of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The authors examine each country's domestic film production, social and political context and domestic audiences from the beginning of this century to the twentieth century. The authors not only explore the work of internationally renowned figures such as Mauritz Stiller, Victor Sjostrom, Carl Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman, directors of such classics as Vampyr, Ordet, Wild Strawberries and Cries and Whispers, but also nationally important film makers such as August Blom, Bodil Ipsen, Lau Lauritzen and Nils Malmros, they also discuss contemporary film makers including Gabriel Axel, director of Babette's Feast, the Kaurismaki brothers, directors of The Match Factory Girl and The Leningrad Cowboys and the recently acclaimed Lars von Trier, director of Breaking the Waves.
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Ecology and Contemporary Nordic Cinemas
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ISBN: 9781441192790Date: 2014-06-19Ecology and Contemporary Nordic Cinemas uses a range of analytical approaches to interrogate how the traditional socio-political rhetoric of national cinema can be rethought through ecosystemic concerns, by exploring a range of Nordic films as national and transnational, regional and local texts--all with significant global implications. By synergizing transnational theories with ecological approaches, the study considers the planetary implications of nation-based cultural production. -
Nordic Genre Film
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ISBN: 9780748693184Date: 2015-05-15Nordic Genre Film offers a transnational approach to studying contemporary genre production in Nordic cinema. It discusses a range of internationally renowned examples, from Nordic noir such as the television show The Bridge and films like Insomnia to high concept 'video generation' productions such as Iron Sky. Other contributions focus on road movies, the horror film, autobiographical films, historical epics and pornography. These are contextualized by discussion of their position in their respective national film and media histories as well as their influence on other Nordic countries and beyond. By highlighting similarities and differences between the countries, the book combines industrial perspectives and in depth discussion of specific films, while also offering historical perspectives on each genre as comes to production, distribution and reception of popular contemporary genre film. -
Performative Histories, Foundational Fictions
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ISBN: 9789517465441Date: 2003-01-01Anu Koivunen analyses the historicity as well as the intertextuality and intermediality of film reception by focusing on a cycle of Finnish family melodrama and its key role in thinking about gender, sexuality, nation, and history. Koivunen argues that the Niskavuori films have mobilised readings in terms of history and memory, feminist nationalism and men's movement, left-wing allegories and right-wing morality as well as realism and melodrama.
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The Cinema of Aki Kaurismäki
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ISBN: 9780231165587Date: 2013-06-25Aki Kaurismäki is an enigma, an eminent auteur who claims his films are a joke. Since 1983, Kaurismäki has produced classically-styled films filled with cinephilic references to film history. The Cinema of Aki Kaurismäki is the first comprehensive English-language study of this eccentric director. Drawing on revisionist approaches to film authorship, the text links the filmmaker and his films to the stories and issues animating film aesthetics and history, nostalgia, late modernity, politics, commerce, film festivals, and national cinema. -
The Cinema of Mika Kaurismäki
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ISBN: 9781841504520Date: 2011-01-01Mika Kaurismäki's films challenge many boundaries, national societies, genre formations, art/popular culture, fiction/documentary, humanity/nature, and problematic distinctions between different zones of development. Synthesizing concepts from a range of thematic frameworks (e.g. auteurism, eco-philosophy, genre, cartography, cineaste networks, global reception, distribution and exhibition practices), and the potential of postnationalism, this book provides an interdisciplinary reading of Kaurismäki cinema. The volume encourages rethinking transnational cinema studies in relation to many oft-debated notions such as Finnish culture, European identity, cosmopolitanism and globalization. -
The Films of Aki Kaurismäki
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ISBN: 9781501325380Date: 2018-09-06Despite creating an extensive and innovative body of work over the last 30 years, Aki Kaurismäki remains relatively neglected in Anglophone scholarship. This international collection of original essays aims to redress such neglect by assembling diverse critical inquiries into Kaurismäki's oeuvre. The first anthology on Kaurismäki to be published in English, it offers a range of voices responding to his politically and aesthetically compelling cinema. Deploying various methodologies to explore multiple facets of his work. -
The National and Beyond
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ISBN: 9783039119660Date: 2010-01-13The films of Aki and Mika Kaurismäki are part of a globalising Finnish cinema, challenging conventional parameters at every turn. This work examines the films that the Kaurismäkis produced, individually and in collaboration, between 1981 and 1995 - films which mobilise various methods to reflect, criticise, counteract and contribute to the globalisation of Finnish society in the era of late capitalist development. This work provides an in-depth analysis of these films, exploring the aesthetic and narrative content of the films as well as their production and reception in Finland. The theoretical scope of the work situates the films not only in the field of transnational cinema, but also that of 'post-national' cinema. Exploring the Kaurismäkis' films in a post-national framework points to new, emergent understandings of both the fragility and the persistence of national culture and identity in a globalising world. -
ReFocus: the Films of Teuvo Tulio
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ISBN: 9781474442152Date: 2020-07-22Teuvo Tulio (1912-2000) was one of the most original directors in Finnish film history. Growing up in the newly independent Finland, he lived most of his life in the Finnish cultural and social context, yet he always remained something of an outsider and ended up as a total recluse. This is the first English-language collection on this innovative director, exploring Tulio's unique style and the extent, and effect of his obsessive recirculation of story elements and stylistic patterns in his work. A range of international scholars analyse how Tulio created his own brand of excessive melodrama, and follow the strange trajectory of his career from within the studio system to the outsider status of an independent producer-director.
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Domitor Journals Project — Finland Domitor, the International Society for the Study of Early Cinema, is an association for people interested in cinema from its emergence to its institutionalization around 1915.
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Filmihullu A bimonthly Finnish language film magazine published in Helsinki, Finland. It is the oldest magazine about films in the country and has been in circulation since 1968.
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MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Indexes worldwide publications on literature, language, linguistics, folklore, film, television, and theater from 1923 to the present. See also the MLA Directory of Periodicals.
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Nordic iLibrary This link opens in a new window Nordic iLibrary is the online research repository of the Nordic Co-operation featuring its publications and statistics.
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Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window Articles and reviews from a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry - including dance, drama, theater, stagecraft, circus, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television, and more. Former database title: International Index to Performing Arts (IIPA) Full Text.
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Finnish Film Foundation The Finnish Film Foundation's task is to support and develop Finnish film production, distribution and exhibition. The site includes links to upcoming releases, news, and festivals, as well as distributors and exhibitors.
Selected Finnish Films
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (dir. Jalmari Helander, 2010)
"In this darkly comic gem, it's Christmas Eve in northern Finland, and an archeological dig has just unearthed Santa Claus. But this Santa isn't one you want coming to town. When local children begin disappearing, Pietari and his father capture the mythological being and attempt to sell Santa to the corporation sponsoring the dig.
Winner of the Variety Piazza Grande Award at the Locarno International Film Festival. Winner of Best Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver - Special Mention at the Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival."
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Le Havre (dir. Aki Kaurismäki, 2011)
This film is set in France, directed by Aki Kaurismäki of Finland, and produced by Kaurismäki's Finnish company Sputnik with international co-producers in France and Germany.
"In this warmhearted portrait of the French harbor city that gives the film its name, fate throws young African refugee Idrissa into the path of Marcel Marx, a well-spoken bohemian who works as a shoeshiner. With innate optimism and the unwavering support of his community, Marcel stands up to officials doggedly pursuing the boy for deportation."
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Do I Have to Take Care of Everything? (dir. Selma Vilhunen, 2011)
"This hilarious Finnish short film was a Nominee for Best Short Film, Live Action at 2014 Academy Awards. Sini wakes up in a panic: she has slept in and the family is late for a wedding. She wakes up her husband Jokke and daughters Ella and Kerttu. They start to prepare themselves in a hurry. Mother is going crazy since nobody else seems to be able to do anything right. Who has messed father’s shirt, and hid the girls’ dresses and the wedding gift?" The film also won Best Comedy at Aspen Shortsfest 2013 and Best Short Film at Manhattan Short Film Festival 2013.
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The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (dir. Juho Kuosmanen, 2016)
"Finland, 1962. Boxer Olli Mäki has a shot at the World Featherweight title. Immensely talented and equally modest, Olli’s small town life is transformed when he's swept into national stardom and suddenly regarded as a symbol of his country. There’s only one problem: Olli has just fallen in love."
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Tove (dir. Zaida Bergroth, 2020)
"Set from 1944 to 1956, the Swedish-language film shows how painter Tove Jansson finds worldwide success from an unexpected side project, in the midst of artistic struggles and an unconventional personal life. Tove Jansson is best known as the creator of the Moomin comics."
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Girl Picture (dir. Alli Haapasalo, 2022)
"Three young women try to defy the persistent winter darkness in Finland. In the process, they move between dreams, reality, friendship and relationships, and try to make sense of the whole mess."
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Unknown Soldier (dir. Aku Louhimies, 2017)
"The film tells the story of Rokka, Kariluoto, Koskela, Hietanen, and their brothers-in-arms, showing how friendship, humor, and the will to live unite these men on their way to and from the battlefield. The war changes each of the soldiers, as well as the lives of those on the home front, leaving its mark on the entire nation."
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Dogs Don't Wear Pants (dir. J.P. Valkeappa, 2019)
"After losing his wife in a tragic drowning accident, Juha is left feeling lost and unable to connect with the world around him. But his life is about to change when he unexpectedly meets a dominatrix named Mona. As the two of them form a powerful connection, Juha's dangerous addiction to suffocation leads them both down a wild, freaky path towards emotional enlightenment."
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The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic (dir. Teemu Nikki, 2021)
"Critically acclaimed at Venice and SXSW, this charming Finnish romance becomes an atypical action-thriller, empathetically shot from the perspective of a man who is blind and disabled. The brightest moments in movie lover Jaakko's day are shared on the phone with Sirpa, the woman he loves even though they've never met in person. When Sirpa gets difficult news, Jaako decides he must go to her immediately, but will need the help of five kind strangers between home and her… what could go wrong?"
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Hatching (dir. Hanna Bergholm, 2022)
"12-year-old Tinja is desperate to please her mother, a woman obsessed with presenting the image of a perfect family. One night, Tinja finds a strange egg. She hides it, keeps it warm. When it hatches, what emerges is beyond belief."
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Fallen Leaves (dir. Aki Kaurismäki, 2023)
"In modern-day Helsinki, Ansa and Holappa, two lonely souls in search of their first love, meet by chance in a local karaoke bar. However, the pair’s path to happiness is beset by numerous obstacles—from lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism, and a charming stray dog."
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