Sun 20.8. at 12.45 | Kulttuurikellari

 

Nastja Säde Rönkkö: Those Who Kept the Light / Seaweed (2022, 8 min)

Those Who Kept the Light is a series of videos exploring our dependent relationship with the sea, in a context of queer and feminist maritime narratives. The narratives are told through the context of human and other-than-human love stories; the wind or the ocean are seen as entities with consciousness, emotions and a voice. Those Who Kept the Light investigates the importance of vulnerability, desire and memory through myths and open-ended narratives. Within the wider framework of climate emergency and the role of the fragile ecosystems of the ocean, the project explores the collective mindset of imagination and longing. Unfolding epic and barren Nordic landscapes, the narrator leads the viewer into spaces and places of solace, empowerment and emotion. 

 

 

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Kaisu Koski: City Reindeer (2022, 9 min)

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Rather than a matter of carbon reduction, City Reindeer considers the climate crisis a relationship problem. This series of interspecies vegan picnics aims to begin restoring relationships with the nonhuman, starting with our relative, the Reindeer. The film considers the picnic an interface between culture and nature, and food as our closest connection to the land and other beings. Knowledge of the elements is a key to survival in Northern Latitudes. In search of contact with the Reindeer, one should thus also learn about the elements such as wind. Both the preparation and the actual proximity to the Reindeer are here considered embodied and contemplative practices. The film portrays the Reindeer as a mirror and a teacher who invites the humans to tune into their animal senses as a connection to the animate Earth.

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Toni Tikkanen & Ville Asikainen: The Last of the Ferrymen (2022, 15 min)

The Last of the Ferrymen is a short documentary film that tells the story of the ferryman Taisto Kainulainen and the great river of Vuoksi. In the early 1990s, Taisto Kainulainen - from the Eastern town of Imatra - had a dream in which he was told to transport people on water. Inspired by the omen, Taisto bought himself a boat, which he uses to transport people along Vuoksi even today.

Vuoksi is a huge river that flows from Finland's Saimaa through Imatra to Lake Ladoga in Russia. Many historically significant events have taken place along Vuoksi: the beginning of the industrialization and urbanization of the whole of Finland, Finland's first tourist destination Imatrankoski as well as key events of the Second World War. The Russian side of Vuoksi has been rarely documented in recent years, and especially in the current world situation, a new Finnish documentary film about the area is exceptional.

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Pira Cousin: Disappearing Rocks, Mountains (2022, 16 min)
 

The cinematic essay Disappearing Rocks, Mountains deals with the contemporary relationship of humans to nature. Featured in the leading role are rocks as a natural element. In rocks the irreversibility of the damage caused by human activities is concretized. New rocks will not rise in the place of the destroyed ones. The narration is carried along by images of rocks shot in and around Helsinki, interlaced with old archive images, video collages, Marja Kalaniemi’s music and the calm narrator’s voice.

Together these constitute a poetic statement on behalf of rocks, biodiversity and the sustainability of Earth.

 

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Mia Mäkelä: Anthropobee (2022, 17 min)

Anthropobee is an experimental video essay about the unique interspecies relationship between humans and the honey bee (apis mellifera). The artist spent three years as a beekeeper, documenting her experiences in a series of humorous, poetic, and contemplative dialogues which leave space for not-knowing and ecocentricity, differing from traditional nature documentaries. Various scenes common in European apiculture today reveal the degree of anthropocentricity and control we impose on the life of the honey bee, subjugating the bees into a condition of exploitable natural resource. 

 

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Maija Blåfield: Scenic View (2023, 15 min)

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Finland has the most forest in Europe, but primeval forest has become so rare that it almost feels fictional. Is it now the enchanted forest? And is a commercial forest real? As nature documentaries are staged, are they fiction?  Scenic View is a nature film about how we look at a forest landscape, but also about how we look at reality. It is a documentary film about documentary filmmaking and documentary scenes in the film are truthful and the presented facts are accurate. But at the same time the film does contain fiction in several ways depending on how you look at it.