Finland
The tango king Harry Koivikko was found dead six years ago in a sleazebag motel, with a knife is his back. The biggest manhunt in the county faded away without results. Jussi Vares gets a phone call from a down-and-out journalist; the informant tells Vares he knows the murderer. Then the journalist disappears without a trace and Vares has to face the biggest challenge of his career. To add insult to the injury, an old acquaintance Veikko Hopea gets his first prison furlough…
Newlywed Peppi (age 21) is about to embark on a honeymoon cruise with her husband and closest friends. The journey starts off in good spirits but then Peppi runs into some old friends who bring back unpleasant memories from her past. Suddenly strange things start to happen on the ship. Members of Peppi´s group begin to disappear. Peppi starts to realize that the disappearances are payback from her past; a drug related death she was a part of. The situation gets gradually worse and even Peppi´s closest friends seem to have motives to hurt her. Who can you trust when you can’t trust anyone?
In the heat of the night, a man from faraway plays the piano. In the local hillside prison, a bitter double-crossed convict stares at the city life over the roofs. A revenge is brewing in his mind; the blood-thirsty killer prepares his escape. Vares gets a client who needs private investigations. Despite the beautiful wife, Vares smells a rat… In the middle of the summer night, a shot rings out. One life comes to an end and Vares finds changes in his assignment. The clues lead him to first-hand encounters and second-hand bookshops; a visit to the gym reveals a drug-smuggling route from Stockholm… Vares finds himself entangled in hot money and cool silk. In the background slithers a cunning garter snake.
A young couple, physiologist Agla and filmmaker Gunnar, wake up at a glacier drilling camp only to find the camp mysteriously abandoned and their co-workers gone. When searching for the lost team they realize they’re up against an unknown deadly force.
Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and struggling author, has given up his literary ambitions and relocated to the port city Le Havre. He leads a simple life based around his wife Arletty, his favourite bar and his not too profitable profession as a shoeshiner. As Arletty suddenly becomes seriously ill, Marcel’s path crosses with an underage illegal immigrant from Africa, who needs Marcel’s help to hide from the police.
FOREST TALE is a family film unique Finnish forests, the colorful and diverse life. film starring Forest by numerous individuals: the bears and deer, snakes and owls, ants, frogs and flying squirrels, the ancient soul of birds such as the Siberian jay, woodpecker and many, many others. Central role are also hundreds of years old trees. There is still a primeval forest is an impressive experience, and gives us a reason to respect the forest environment like the old days of his contemporaries did. around a campfire in the woods has always been told and listened to
A romantic fairy tale about a 19-year old orphan girl who, as her sole inheritance, gets an antique key that unlocks both an old Italian villa and the secrets of her family history.
A simple can of ravioli propels this spectacular 30,000-kilometre, eight-country journey through all phases of food production and the far flung sources of international ingredients. A dream-like voyage with glimpses of disconcerting realities, the story begins with a single mother toiling in one of the biggest open pit mines in Brazil and ends on the shelf of a grocery store in Finland. Along the way, the workers whose calloused hands mine, raise and harvest each ingredient reveal their dreams and hopes, like the Danish pig farmer who loves his sows but longs for a girlfriend, and the Portuguese tomato picker who wants to stay healthy long enough to pay her daughters way through university. Sumptuous photography and impressive sound design make an eloquent statement about our modern, globalized world, making us aware of the hundreds of invisible people who prepare the food we eat every day. -Gisèle Gordon (HotDocs.ca)
Eero is a writer, whose career is in a downward spiral, and he is badly struggling to write his new novel. Pihla is an ambitious actress on the verge of an international breakthrough. Neither of them is willing to sacrifice their careers even though their relationship is doing worse than ever. Eero ends up resorting to unusual and even desperate measures in order to get his career going again. The determined Pihla decides to juggle her career with her new role as a mother. But is there room in their relationship for these grandiose plans of theirs? Eero and Pihla go their separate ways to find answers from distant places such as Havana, the Atlantic Ocean, Hollywood, and Lapland.
Blood Riders is a blood soaked adventure comedy about 4 young friends who stumble upon a body after stealing a car. That discovery pushes the friends on a road trip around town during which they try get rid of the increasing amount of corpses. Along their wild ride the kids encounter neo-Nazis, punk artists, devil worshipers and a plan to resurrect Hitler.
Lonely son of a Canadian preacher man Michael builds the first professional wrestling company in faraway Finland. Young transsexual wrestler Jessica infiltrates into the company contesting Michael both physically and ideologically. Anger and frustration get to Michael who is now 40 years old still looking for companion. He is looking for love, but first must learn not to hate. As Michael finds true love online he redefines his values, and reinvents himself as a wrestler in love.
Ville, 25, is a downbeat former child star who’s successfully avoided his womanizing rock ‘n’ roll dad for years. Everything changes when his dad moves into his flat and they both fall in love with the same American line-dancing teacher.
Aarno Lamminparras hijacked an airplane with a gun in 1978. A true story.
Twentysomething Petri got over a break-up by pushing his credit card limit in order to buy stuff. Still, after three years, the anxiety remains, so all things must go into a storage container. For a year, Petri allows himself to retrieve only one item per day. New life begins naked next to a radiator.
In 1984—before cell phones, the web, and reality TV, a young director set out to document a year in the life of a typical California high school. The result was “All American High”, an unusually honest and humorous look at 80’s teen life. Told through the eyes of a visiting foreign exchange student, the film presents an uncensored view of senior year in the era of big hair, punks and parachute pants. Thirty years after they lived it, some of the film’s original subjects return in new interviews, revisiting one of the most memorable chapters in their lives.
Faro is about a man who flees into the forest with his daughter to escape a prison sentence.
Neo-Nazi falls in love with a woman who has a black son and finds himself fighting with conflicting feelings.
Every nation gets the heroes it deserves. A man with a special blood type is used as a device for human doping athletes skiing national team.
The Singer is a film about the all-time favourite singer in Finland, Olavi Virta. A man who rose from poverty all the way to the top and became an artist who was dearly loved by the Finnish people. A man who loved beautiful women and was loved by beautiful women. A man who enjoyed speed, American cars, applause and alcohol and who finally lost everything but his unique voice.
Stupid Young Heart is a story about the first love of lightly built, carefree Lenni and gorgeous and popular Kiira. Not yet even properly in a relationship, they discover that they are expecting a baby, and decide to keep it – partly as a statement to their families who have lost touch with what goes on in the teenagers’ lives. Lenni then has nine months to become a man. Having grown up without a father figure, Lenni receives some yearned for adult attention from an unlikely friend; 40-year old Janne, a member of a right wing activist group. After taking part in a scrambled attack on a local Mosque, while Kiira is rushed to the hospital to give birth, Lenni realises that he can be a man in his own way, even if he never had a chance to be a child himself.
Miguel “Bayoneta” Galíndez is a retired boxer from Tijuana who finds himself living in a cramped flat in Finland. As his future begins to look up, a desire for redemption draws him back into the ring.
Turo is stuck in a small village and the best thing in his life is being the lead vocalist for the amateur metal band Impaled Rektum. He and his bandmates have practiced for 12 years without playing a single gig. The guys get a surprise visitor from Norway — the promoter for a huge heavy metal music festival — and decide it’s now or never. They steal a van, a corpse, and even a new drummer to make their dreams a reality.
Seventeen-year-olds Miku and Elias find themselves, and each other, during a summer in the Finnish countryside.
Anni, a daughter of a wealthy family and used to secure life, falls in love with Veikko, a war invalid of the Continuation War. Anni leaves her past behind her and starts leading the life of a pioneer, in the wild forests of northern Karelia, in a settlement farm. After a rosy start, the fate crushes Anni’s dreams and her love for Veikko is put to a test.
Twenty years after the events of Iron Sky, the former Nazi Moonbase has become the last refuge of mankind. Earth was devastated by a nuclear war, but buried deep under the wasteland lies a power that could save the last of humanity – or destroy it once and for all. The truth behind the creation of mankind will be revealed when an old enemy leads our heroes on an adventure into the Hollow Earth. To save humanity they must fight the Vril, an ancient shapeshifting reptilian race and their army of dinosaurs.
The Lapland tundra. Rupi is a young miner who fills his days by traficking in illegal pills, drinking, and dropping coins in a slot machine. After his friend is murdered, Rupi realises that he loves his friend’s widow. But the mine owner wants her too. The violence becomes a spectacle, the tragedy comic, the tundra cold, the people degenerate and hope ephemeral, like a star shooting through the sky. But even in this world, hope briefly rears its head.
Pekka Malmikunnas is a bankrupt, penniless man, who has convinced his family that he is still the CEO of a large IT company. Maintaining this façade in order to save face has become something of a full-time job for him. When Pekka’s parents unexpectedly come for a visit, he throws a lavish family dinner party in order to dispel any doubts. The soirée is a success until Pekka’s god-daughter gets run over by a car. The reckless driver becomes a mutual enemy for the family. The driver tries to atone for his actions, but the situation spirals out of control and Pekka attacks the man. Pekka realizes things have gone too far and decides to tell his family the truth. It does not hurt as much as Pekka thought, bringing the pieces of a once broken family back together.
