Finnish movie Princess in the EU Film Festival “Celebrating Women” in India
Starting today, the 18th edition of the European Union Film Festival (EUFF) will take carefully selected range of European films for a tour of India und
Nurse Elsa (Paula Vesala) Princess Patient Anna Lappalainen (Katja Kukkola)
er the topical theme "Celebrating women". The festival will lead its audience to discover the untold stories of women, to peak into the very different lives of women and even to encounter the hardships of being a woman.
The tour comprises altogether 11 cities and during it the visitors will have the opportunity to see 24 films that have not yet been screened in India. The movies are for all age groups and both genders and some of them are dramas, others comedies but all of them engaging the viewers in the worlds they depict.
The Princess
Finland will be represented at the Film Festival by a Finnish feature film ‘Princess’ directed by Mr. Arto Halonen. Inspired by the life of Anna Lappalainen, Princess tells a story of a woman whose character is considered ill by society but whose warm personality melts the hearts of people close to her. Princess stars the cream of Finland’s leading actors, and is the fiction film debut of the award-winning documentary filmmaker Arto Halonen,director of Shadow of the Holy Book, Pavlov’s Dogs and The Magnetic Man. The film was written by Arto Halonen, Pirjo Toikka and Paavo Westerberg.
The story of Princess is based on real life events. Cabaret dancer Anna Lappalainen (KatjaKüttner) is admitted to a psychiatric hospital and soon is perceived to suffer from severe delusions. She thinks she is a “Princess”, belonging to the English royal family. Soon she takes up helping others as her life mission and gathers a court from her fellow patients, a group that is to become her family inside the walls of the psychiatric hospital. The hospital staff, however, is worried of her delusional behavior and start considering for treatment a new invention, lobotomy, which is making its way to Finland.
Princess was a success both in box office and DVD sales in Finland, being the top movie of Finland’s box office for several weeks. The lead actress Katja Küttner won a Jussi award from the Finnish film industry for best leading actress. Princess has also reached international distribution and received several awards at international film festivals (Best Feature Film award at the Teaneck International Film Festival in the US; the Grand Prix for best film at the Cape Winelands Film Festival in South Africa). Arto Halonen, who is the producer as well as the director of Princess, has also won a series of social and cultural awards since the film's release (City of Helsinki Culture Prize 2010; Civil Action Prize of the Finnish Federation for Social Welfare and Health; The Finnish National Mental Health Prize).
