Shorts Competition 2: Northern Scenes

Rooms
dir. Antti Lempiäinen, Finland 2025, 37 min
How does it feel to not have a roof over your head? The changing of the seasons and Helsinki’s familiar streets can look very different coloured by a constant worry over your future, fate, and survival. Street writer Janne gives a diary-like account of his experiences, some of them dark and even brutal. The images captured on 16mm film by director Antti Lempiäinen make the experience palpable. And yet, there is a comforting and hopeful undertone to the film: a better life is possible.
Paavo Ihalainen (translated by Adrian Murtomäki)

I Tried to Capture Him in the Image But He Disappeared
dir. Mikki Noroila, Finland 2024, 13 min
Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s honeymoon trip to Viena Karelia was one of the numerous colonial expeditions undertaken by Finnish artists, aiming to draw from Karelian culture to construct Finnish cultural heritage. Director Mikki Noroila’s relative Rimmin Ul’l’aska, who lived in Viena Karelia, served as a living model for Väinämöinen in Gallen-Kallela’s Aino Triptych (1891). The film tells an alternative narrative of history, one that does not rely on the Finnish colonial tradition.
Heta Heikkala

Tough Finnish Man
dir. Jari Nordström, Finland 2025, 6 min
The everyday, democratic pleasures of the sauna get their dues in this short film stripped of everything superfluous. There is a tangible warmth recorded on the 16 millimetre film used by director Jari Nordström and cinematographer Kalle Pajamaa, even before the water thrower reaches the sauna benches. As singer Tapio Rautavaara calls on the film’s soundtrack: “More water on the stones!”
Sakri Pölönen (translated by Adrian Murtomäki)

Itä-Pasila
dir. Anu Pennanen, Finland 2025, 38 min
Itä-Pasila, the rough-around-the-edges neighbourhood filled with concrete building blocks, office buildings and diverse inhabitants, is at the centre of Anu Pennanen’s experimental film that mixes documentary with fictional sequences. This mostly dialogue-free film, scored by Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1, explores the eastern side of the Helsinki borough divided in two by train tracks. As inhabitants of Itä-Pasila reminisce about everyday life in their beloved part of town, their thoughts are conveyed to the viewer through text on the screen. To some, Itä-Pasila is reminiscent of grey and depressing barracks, but to others the area is a cherished home filled with good memories. 
Joonatan Nikkinen (translated by Sofia Lanki)

Directors Antti Lempiäinen, Mikki Noroila and Anu Pennanen will attend the screening on 4 February.