Globetrotting Finnish documentaries at Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto
2019 is turning out to be quite the year for Finnish documentaries, making their mark at festivals, including North America’s largest documentary festival, Toronto’s Hot Docs (April 25 – May 5). Seven Finnish films made the festival to present their interpretation of the art of documentary.
Already reaping praise for the evocative and visual storytelling, Arthur Franck’s Hypnotist(Link to another website.) (Olliver Hawk) is an intriguing portrait of Olavi Hakasalo aka Olliver Hawk, a celebrity hypnotist. The charismatic Olliver Hawk rose to fame in Finland in the 1960’s with his stage hypnosis act as well as public lectures on the topic. He also offered hypnotic therapy for mostly addictions and anxiety. According to director Franck the film is an immersive experience, drawn from a wealth of archival material. It looks at the nature of truth and the perception of reality, revealing a portrait of a man who remained a mystery even to those closest to him but it is also a reflection of the Finnish society at the time. The Hynotist comes to Hot Docs from the Copenhagen’s documentary film festival and will continue from Toronto to Krakow.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/317221937(Link to another website.)
Screenings: Saturday April 27 at 9.15 pm, Monday April 29 at 1 pm, and Sunday May 5, Details and ticket info(Link to another website.)
Tony Hristov is hitting Hot Docs consistently as his two previous documentaries The Good Postman(Link to another website.) 2016 and Love and Engineering(Link to another website.) (2014) were seen at the festival. His filmography is peppered with awards and nominations throughout his fifteen years of filmmaking to-date.
In The Magic Life of V(Link to another website.) (Veeran maaginen elämä 2019) V or Veera escapes to live action role-playing from a past filled with bullying and childhood memories of an alcoholic father who was violent towards Veera and her brother Ville. The Magic Life of V has already screened at Sundance and Berlinale. At Sundance, it garnered a glowing review by Screendaily(Link to another website.) and recently won the Best Documentary award at the Sofia International Film Festival in Bulgaria.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/304822171(Link to another website.)
Screenings: Wednesday May 1 at 9.45 pm, Thursday May 2 at 3.30 pm, and Sunday May 5 at 9 pm Details and ticket info(Link to another website.)
Gods of Molenbeek(Link to another website.) (Aatos ja Amine) opened this year’s Doc Point documentary film festival in Helsinki and won both the Critic’s choice and the audience favourite award. A Highlight of its busy festival run so far includes the sold out opening screening at the Visions du Réel festival in Switzerland as well as being selected for Hot Docs. Molenbeek is a district of Brussels, familiar to director Reetta Huhtanen(Link to another website.) as her sister lived there for several years. The film follows Huhtanen’s nephew Aatos and his best friend Amine as they charmingly explore life’s big questions as well as their multicultural neighbourhood, home to a large Muslim community that in 2016 came under the microscope during the Brussels bomb attacks. Molenbeek was suspected to be somehow linked to the perpetrators, or other terror related activity. For the six-year-old Aatos and his friend Amine their friendship is unshaken by the events, regardless of their different backgrounds and the tension around them.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/299404931(Link to another website.)
Screenings: Thursday May 2 at 8.45 pm, Saturday May 4 at 6 pm. Details and ticket info(Link to another website.)
Visual artist Milja Viita (Link to another website.) has an interesting connection to Canada as participant in Philip Hoffman’s Film Farm(Link to another website.) in 2018. As a result, her work When We Are Nothing Left (Link to another website.)will be part of the Film Farm 25th Anniversary Exhibition in Film Reference Library at the TIFFLightbox June 25-July 19. At Hot Docs, her documentary short Animal Bridge U-3033 (Eläinsilta U-3033) will have its international premiere in the Animal Magnetism Short Program. The experimental documentary is a visual diary from around a wildlife overpass at a busy motorway. It recently won the Risto Jarva Award at Tampere Film Festival. The jury described the film as a beautiful, poetic and even somewhat rugged story on how man harnesses nature into their needs, and represses both animals and vegetation as subordinates to human action.
Trailer: http://www.av-arkki.fi/en/works/animal-bridge-u-3033/#(Link to another website.)
Screenings: Fridday April 26 at 3.00 pm and Saturday April 27 at 8.15 pm. Details and ticket info(Link to another website.)
Another Tampere Film Festival award winner, Untitled (Burned Rubber on Asphalt(Link to another website.)) by Tinja Ruusuvuori (Link to another website.) was seen at the Visions du Réel festival in Switzerland before coming to Toronto at the same time touring a total of ten European short film festivals. The Tampere festival jury described Untitled as a unique and unexpected: ‘The investigative approach of the director shows how apparently juvenile joyriding can be an expression of creativity that deserves an artistic review’. Filmed in a remote Norwegian village where mysterious skid marks appear on the road and speculations abound. Visual artist and filmmaker Tinja Ruusuvuori is currently based in Glasgow where she completed a Master of Letters in Fine Art Practice at the Glasgow School of Art.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/279630761(Link to another website.)
Screenings (with Acid Forest): Friday April 26 at 3.15 pm and Saturday April 27 at 7 pm. Details and ticket info(Link to another website.)
In the Changing Face of Europe programme Pilvi Takala(Link to another website.)’s short documentary The Stroker is cleverly paired with To Share or Not to Share by Estonian directors Minna Hint and Meelis Muhu as explorations of in-your-face social interactions. In The Stroker, director Takala creates a social studies experiment on a premise of a workplace human touch consultant over two weeks at a co-working place. She likes to study behavioural boundaries and individual comfort levels in awkward situations. In a previous short, Bag Lady, she walks through a shopping mall dressed as a vagrant, carrying a clear plastic bag full of money while filming the reactions of people around her.
The Stroker will have its international premiere at Hot Docs. It was shown in Takala’s retrospective at the Kiasma art museum in Helsinki this winter and has been selected to the International Competition of International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/299434890(Link to another website.)
Screenings: Thursday April 29 at 8.00 pm and Wednesday May 1 at 1.30 pm. Details and ticket info(Link to another website.)
Star Shaped Scar by sisters Vuokko and Virva Kunttu will have its international premiere in the Persister short film programme where women from both sides of the lens take on beauty standards imposed on them by society. Star Shaped Scar has already made its mark in Finland with two best short film awards, one at the Helsinki International Film Festival Love and Anarchy and the other the Jussi, the Finnish national film award. According the Love and Anarchy festival jury it has the power to take your breath away. It is the story of a living doll who loves Louboutin shoes and princess dresses and says she does not even know what the words natural beauty mean.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/322776835(Link to another website.)
Screenings: Friday April 26 at 5.30 pm and Saturday April 27 at 1.15 pm. Details and ticket info(Link to another website.)