National Competition

Content warnings for this screening:
Theme warning: child abuse, domestic violence
Scene warning: violence (not graphic)

Films in this screening:

Anni Sairio, Joonatan Turkki:

Other People
(Muut ihmiset)

Finland, 2023. 8 minutes.

The main characters want to be alone, but random events force them to face each other.

Tapani Tolonen:

Castle Blue
(Sininen linna)

Finland, 2023. 3 minutes.

A Knight. A Princess. A Dragon. And a triangle that turns out to be an interval.

Niina Suominen:

Golden Headacher
(Kultainen Päänsärkijä)

Finland, 2022. 17 minutes.

An experimental animation documentary about women’s hate and aggression and the culturally sanctioned ways to express or suppress these uneasy feelings. The film was created by animating textile and décor waste and beautiful glossy pictures of children that were popular in Scandinavia in the last century. The work brings to the fore the irritation and exhaustion felt by women and the thoughts often left unsaid outside the walls of home, as well as reflecting on the remorse and the shame felt after the bursts of anger.

Heta Okkonen:

Gravitating
(Gravitaationi)

Finland, 2023. 8 minutes.

Two worlds collide in gravity altering love. The darkness of the mind enters.

Antti Tanttu:

Noli Timere

Finland, 2022. 6 minutes.

Noli Timere is a work about the experience and emotion of fear or anxiety. What is common or private in those feeling and what connects those. The work contemplates is there a collective fear and what focuses it on.

Jenny Jokela:

Sweet Like Lemons

United Kingdom, 2023. 6 minutes.

Sweet Like Lemons is a visual reflection on getting out of a harmful relationship and moving on. The title is a play on the saying “when life gives you lemons make lemonade”, only in this case there is no lemonade to be made but the lemons still taste sweeter than what you left behind.

Lauri Ketonen:

Hound

Finland, 2023. 11 minutes.

Hound tells the story of a young child who is desperately trying to survive in a dark, abandoned city. Huge dog as her only comfort the duo not only need to find food but also have to escape the monster that is trailing on them. Series of events leaves our main character completely alone, which has horrible repercussions. In the finale the child needs to make a decision to either stay in the darkness or attempt to escape the tight grip of it.

Tomi Malkki:

Hiukset kuin vesiputous

Finland, 2023. 5 minutes.

Hair is an extension of the nervous system. They can rightly be seen as external nerves, a kind of well-developed sense horns or antennae, which transmit a huge amount of important information to the brainstem, limbic system and neocortex.

Heta Jäälinoja:

Nun or Never!

Finland, 2023. 11 minutes.

The nuns living in the convent are happily melted together. When one nun finds a man in the garden, the harmony breaks and she loses the shared rhytm.

Iiti Yli-Harja:

Blush - An Extraordinary Voyage

Finland, 2022. 15 minutes.

For 18-year-old Finnish–Kosovan Fatu, a simple visit to the grocery store feels as nerve-racking as a lunar expedition: for the first time in his life, he’s wearing makeup in public. Luckily his best friend Rai, a young woman on the spectrum of autism, is there to ferociously support him through the voyage.

Content warnings for this screening:
Theme warning: child abuse, domestic violence
Scene warning: violence (not graphic)