From the beginning to the 1980s
Like much of Europe, Finnish cinema emerged at the end of the 19th century, with the first projection of moving images in 1896. It would be another ten years before we saw the first Finnish film production, K.E. Stahlberg's The Moonshiners, released in 1907. In the early 1920s, director and producer Erkki Karu, considered one of the pioneers of Finnish cinema, founded Suomi-Filmi, a production company that prospered for a decade. Unfortunately, the 1929 crash in the United States also affected Finland, and Erkki Karu was forced to leave the company on suspicion of fraud. Finnish cinema fell victim to the American steamroller, and only really took off after the Second World War. The 1950s saw the emergence of Edvin Laine's The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon sotilas). Adapted twice (1955 and 1985) from a Finnish literary classic that narrates the difficulties faced by a company of Finnish soldiers in defending their position against the Soviet army in 1941, these two films offer radically different points of view. The first praises the soldiers, while the second denounces the atrocities and barbarity of war. However, the arrival of television in the 1960s plunged the Finnish film industry back into the doldrums. Nevertheless, directors such as Risto Jarva(The Year of the Hare, 1977) and Mikko Niskanen, whose first work Pojat (1962) premiered at the third Moscow International Film Festival, were still making their mark. Also from this period is Jörn Donner, best known for producing Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander in 1982. Three years earlier, Donner won a place on the jury at the 29th Berlinale in Germany.
The era of the Kaurismäki brothers
Born in 1955 and 1957, the Kaurismäki brothers represent the new generation of Finnish cinema. Denouncing the influence of Swedish and American culture, the Kaurismäkis often provoke puritanical audiences in the capital. This is particularly true of Aki's films, which always reveal themselves to be an explosive mix of wacky comedy and desperate drama. In 1983, Aki launched his career with an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. This was followed by works such as Leningrad Cowboys go America (1989), La Fille aux allumettes (1990) and Juha (1999). He returned in 2002 with L'Homme sans passé, which won the Jury's Special Grand Prize and the Best Actress Award for Kati Outinen (already featured in Juha) at the Cannes Film Festival that same year. The film also competed at the 75th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Film category. Next came Les Lumières du Faubourg in 2006, followed by Le Havre, nominated for a 2012 César. Shot entirely in France, it tells the story of a shoeshine boy who comes to the aid of a refugee. Between two of Aki's films, Mika directed the drama The Queen Boy (2015), about the possible affair between Queen Christine of Sweden and Countess Ebba Sparre. In 2017, Aki Kaurismäki returns with The Other Side of Hope. The film tells the story of a Syrian refugee who has just arrived in Helsinki and is hired in a restaurant. For this film, the filmmaker won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival in 2017, ending his career on a high note as he announced his retirement that same year. However, his retirement was short-lived, as he returned to the limelight in 2022 with Les Feuilles mortes, which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023!
Noted works
The 2000s were a fruitful period for film production, with other works making their mark internationally. 2001 saw the release of Seitsemän Laulua Tundralta (7 Songs of the Tundra) by Markku Lehmuskallio and Anastasia Lapsui. Through seven stories drawn from Nenet folklore, this film tells the story of this people of the Far North, their adaptation to extreme living conditions and their resistance from the 1920s to the present day. His film Lapps, released in 2007, is also a masterpiece. In the early 2010s, Jalmari Helander's Rare Exports and Dome Karukoski's Napapiirin sankarit (Heroes of the Arctic Circle - Very Cold Trip) came to the fore. Finally, in 2016, Juho Kuosmanen's black-and-white film Olli Mäki was inspired by the life of one of the country's greatest boxers of the 1960s, Olli Mäki, who maintained his values and worldview in the face of the pressure of high society to which he was exposed. The film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival the same year, winning the coveted Prix Un Certain Regard. In 2021, Juho Kuosmanen released Compartment No. 6, a Finnish-Russian collaboration that depicts the encounter between a Finnish traveler and a Russian worker on a sleeper train between Moscow and Murmansk. The film is adapted from Rosa Liksom's novel of the same name.
On the small screen
In Finland, an emblematic figure is the illustrator and author Tove Jansson. She became famous for her comic strip The Moomins, created in 1945, following the adventures of three little trolls. Although this work is aimed at a young audience, Jansson nonetheless manages to slip in some important messages. Homosexuality, for example, is subtly addressed in the story of Zotte and Zézette, two little girls walking hand in hand, carrying a small suitcase with a big secret. Walt Disney Studios offered to buy Tove Jansson's franchise, but she declined. However, in the 1990s, the comic strip was adapted for the small screen, in co-production with Japan. The world of Moomins was exported to the big screen in 1992 with Une comète au pays des Moomins. This was followed by Moomin et la folle aventure de l'été (2008), Les Moomins sur la Riviera (2014) and, more recently, Le Noël des Moomins (2017). However, Tove Jansson's work is not the only example of a Finnish TV adaptation. Finnish firm Rovio Entertainment developed the Angry Birds Toons animated series, based on the eponymous video game, in 2013. The series follows the adventures of Red the bird, who, with the help of his companions, must defend his nest and eggs from hideous green pigs. For adults, we recommend the detective series Bordertown (2016) by Miiko Oikkonen, set in the small town of Lappenranta; the mini-series The Guild (2006), Roba (2012-2019) and the Deadwind series (still in production), available on the Netflix streaming platform.
