Finnish Films at Hot Docs

Toronto’s Hot Docs is one of the major documentary films festivals in the world and the largest in North America. This year six Finnish films were chosen for the festival screening online anywhere in Canada.

29.4. – 9.5.2021

online

available anywhere in Canada

Hot Docs International Documentary Festival

Film

Mia Halme’s People We Come Across(Link to another website.) (Missä tiet kohtaavat) will have its international premiere at the festival.  It focuses on a Finnish doctor researching a diarrhea vaccine in Benin, West Africa. Finnish tourists looking for an affordable trip volunteer as research subjects also spurred on by the need to help.  There is a lot to figure out about actually helping, but most of all the film is a story about human encounters.

Her previous documentary, Every Other Couple(Link to another website.) was also in competition at Hot Docs in 2017. 

Trailer (Link to another website.)

 

For quite a while filmmaker Mohamed El Aboudi(Link to another website.) has made Finland his home.  His documentary School of Hope(Link to another website.) (Toiveiden koulu) gets its international premiere in Toronto.  A school manages to operate in the harsh environment of the Moroccan desert because of the sheer will of the community.

Trailer(Link to another website.)

 

Eatnameamet – Our Silent Struggle(Link to another website.) (Eatnameamet – Hiljainen taistelumme), directed by Suvi West is a critical look at the Sámi politics of the Finnish state and the Sámis’ struggle for their rights.

Suvi West interview with Cineuropa(Link to another website.)

Trailer(Link to another website.)

 

Lost Boys(Link to another website.) by Joonas Neuvonen and Sadri Cetinkaya has been described as the ultimate drug trip gone wrong.  Joonas Neuvonen’s friends, who were part of a 2010 documentary on drug addiction, Reindeerspotting: Escape from Santaland, disappeared on a drug-fuelled trip in South East Asia.  Neuvonen goes back in an attempt to find out what happened only to be lost in the mystery himself.  Lost Boys was the number one documentary in Finland last year with over 73 000 domestic admissions even with restricted cinema attendance.

Trailer(Link to another website.)

 

Short film Goodbye Tornio(Link to another website.) (Hei hei Tornio) by Emilia Hernesniemi brings alive Vilma’s joy of high school graduation, as she gets ready to move on from a small northern town in Finland to embrace a new stage in her life in a big city.    Screening With World Showcase Shorts: The School of Life(Link to another website.)

Trailer(Link to another website.)

 

Maija Tammi(Link to another website.)’s short experimental documentary The Problem of the Hydra(Link to another website.) is a mesmerizing look at a freshwater polyp – a life form that does not age, keeps on reproducing, and has been doing so since the 1700s.

Screening With World Showcase Shorts: Look Don't Touch(Link to another website.)

Trailer(Link to another website.)

 

Additional films at Hot Docs with a Finnish connection: Descent(Link to another website.), Life of Ivanna(Link to another website.), and Raise the Bar(Link to another website.), which follows an unconventional Icelandic coach and his basketball team of preteen girls ready to challenge the status quo.

 

All about the festival at hotdocs.ca(Link to another website.)