Pirkko Hämäläinen

Two diverse families meet for the first time over Christmas dinner. The evening goes off the rails right from the start when the male host couple reveal a closely guarded secret: there's also a hostess in the house, and she's very pregnant! Of course, the frantic group of relatives don't take the news lightly and demand the paternity to be confirmed - which is no simple task. A series of misunderstandings drives the Christmas guests to the brink of a nervous breakdown, and as the evening progresses, Santa Claus himself is forced to look in the mirror. Their Christmas together seems doomed to failure until, to everyone's surprise, the evening culminates in a heart-melting Christmas miracle.

This captivating exploration of Alvar Aalto, the defining figure in Scandic design and one of Europe's greatest modern architects, focuses on his remarkable and loving partnership with wife, Aino. Theirs was a profoundly humanist vision that put people at the centre of design, and ranged from work in furniture design through to huge architectural projects. They mixed with, and influenced, major figures of modernist art and design including Le Corbusier, Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Come on a cinematic tour of their iconic buildings all over the world, from a library in Russia, a student dormitory at MIT, an art collector's private house near Paris, to a pavilion in Venice. Narrated by experts in the field and featuring never before seen archive footage, Aalto tells the love story of an extraordinary couple with a great passion for human scale architecture.

Black drama-comedy about elementary school teacher Kaisa who has lost control of her life.

Rousku and Raninen are fleeing their unemployment by setting up a construction company. Occupational illiteracy is not an obstacle and accounting is fine when Rouskun's mate deals with things. The entrepreneurs know that the poor can be, but not artificial. But what's the point for the scratchy women? Especially when Rousku gets to look in the mirror again and find out what kind of father, such a daughter.

Eevi works in a beauty parlor, leading a humdrum life in the suburbs of Helsinki with his husband Kari, a wannabe rocker. After the jackpot, the couple agrees to carry on with their lives as before, without telling anyone about the stroke of luck. But the money is burning holes in their pockets and that’s hard to hide. Their opinions about themselves and their relationship are put to the test. Everyone seems now to have a strange attitude towards them – although they try to pretend to be the same people as before. Do the millions bring happiness after all?

Miami is the story of two sisters who have grown up separately. The older sister, Angela, is an exotic dancer with her own touring dance group. The younger, Anna, on the threshold of adulthood, lives in a small town working in sales. When their father dies, Anna looks for and finds Angela. The fascinating, high-strung Angela asks the timid Anna to accompany her on tour and, before long, trouble from Angela’s past catches up to them and the sisters’ love is put to the test.

Anna’s story takes place on Åland Island in 1666, during the beginning of the most widespread and systematic witch-hunts in Scandinavian history. In all, 16 women were convicted of being in league with the devil, and seven of them were executed. For Judge Psilander, who has mastered the newest witch theories of the time, the trials are meant to cleanse the island of superstition, to have science and common sense prevail. The main character, the intelligent and stubborn Anna, gets an intimate view of the events, having just started working as a maid in the judge’s house. To Anna’s misfortune, she falls intensely in love with her friend Rakel’s husband Elias, but his infatuation with her quickly fades. A hurt and jealous Anna decides to get revenge and falsely reports Rakel to Judge Psilander. It’s only when Rakel is arrested, and things get out of hand, that Anna realizes the gravity of her doings.

Marja (Minka Kuustonen) is a blogger. Olavi is one of the richest men in the country. She might be able to save her blog if she dates him, but what if she falls for him for real?

Baby Girl, 30, a poet with a bachelor's degree in arts, is anguished because of her relationship with Pirkka, a relatively smart, young man. Baby Girl's parents, Eila and Rampe, do their best to become friends with Pirkka and his elegant mother. Through coincidence and error Eila occupies her summerhouse neighbors' empty luxury villa. When Pirkka's mother drops by, Eila lies that she and Rampe own the fancy house. The showing off and lying escalate when Eila's mother and sister show up. The real owners of the house, an upper-class couple, Thomas and Monica, are driven away to Eila and Rampe's modest cottage.

An comedy set in 1960s Helsinki. The story revolves around Elsa, a resolute hatmaker who is in complete control of her life. Besides running her shop, she sometimes doubles as a fortune teller. When Jan, a Czechoslovakian jazz musician and Elsa's old lover comes to town to perform at a "peace and friendship festival", her well-organised life is jolted out of balance.

At first glance Maarit looks like any other woman in her early forties. There is, however, something strange under the surface. She radiates sexual energy that is hard to define.

Year 1977. Punk and new wave rock´n roll has arrived to remote Finland and a bleak small town Oulu where increasingly odd-looking youths began to appear in the street with a message. Their rebellion speaks to Välde (17). Välde dreams of joining a rock band and becoming famous. He wants to get drunk for the first time, and to win the love of Pike, the most beautiful girl in the class. When Pike wins the Miss Blue Jeans contest organised by the country´s leading (and only) pop music magazine Suosikki and takes as her boyfriend the bourgeois Henri Hakala, Välde puts all his eggs in one basket. He abandons his former self and begins purposefully constructing a new persona for himself. But everything doesn’t go as Välde wanted … The film is based on a novel by Kauko Röyhkä, an author and indie rock musician.

The Unknown Woman is a documentary film scripted and directed by Elina Kivihalme. It depicts the reality of Finnish agriculture and forestry during the war years, when the home front relied entirely upon the work and endurance of the women. All farm work, caring for the children, woodcutting and other forestry operations were undertaken by the civilians, as the men in their prime were on the front.

Documentary about the life of Finnish actor Matti Pellonpää.

Rome, Paris and Helsinki right after the Madrid bombings. Three stories about people who, for different reasons, are afraid of others – the eponymous "thy neighbor." A humanity full of differences, but at the same time, with very similar feelings. So similar that their stories appear almost parallel and complementary.

Thousands of years ago in ancient China, a man fights against his destiny. He wants another chance to be reunited with his loved one and he gets that chance, in a far away place and a far away time, in modern Finland.

Story about human relationships, love and forgiveness.

Finland in the 50s saw a time where boats from all over the world docked in the harbor city of Kotka. In addition to transporting goods, the sailors brought with them another import: jazz, swing and blues. A tale of music-loving, fearless and passionate young men decide to open Fennia, a jazz bar. Soon Fennia achieves legendary status and the men; the Harbour Brothers, play their music and hold court like emperors.

Ella, a girl from the province, starts her freshman year at the Helsinki Business School. The capital's party scene introduces her to ecstasy, and together with her new friend Silja and boyfriend Jokke she can't help finding it an easy and lucrative business opportunity. The three soon develop an addiction not so much to the drug but to all the good things that the money can buy. But before long, reality bites back.

A short film by Aki Kaurismäki. It was shot in 2001 as a test before filming The Man Without a Past, featuring much of the same cast. Markku Peltola plays a man who leaves his company and boards a train to Moscow with the woman he is going to marry.

Middle-aged Late is building a fence in his family home for a summer break, but he falls in love with his daughter's new friend, 16-year old flirtatious Saija.

The story of a rock band "Kalle Päätalo" in the 1980s.

Widowed and broke Finnish businessman Kari takes his two teenage daughters with him to Brazil. A bush pilot introduces him to the idea of gold mining in the jungle, but a beautiful and educated local woman warns him about the possible consequences to the rain forest. Kari has mixed feelings about the project, until an accident puts him in the care of a local Indian tribe.

Russia attacked Finland in late November 1939. This film tells the story of a Finnish platoon of reservists from the municipality of Kauhava in the province of Pohjanmaa/Ostrobothnia who leave their homes and go to war. The film focuses on the farmer brothers Martti and Paavo Hakala.

Anna Kelanen is an ex-model, who just has been released from prison. She thinks back on her life, when she was a rather successful model, and on the things that went wrong.

A Finnish film version of Macbeth. Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.

A man fakes his own suicide in order to see how his close ones react

Calamari Union is an allegorical movie that tells the story of sixteen men all of whom are called Frank (inspired by Frank Armoton) apart from a single confrere, Pekka. Collectively the Franks and Pekka are unhappy with the perceived oppression they face in their district of Helsinki, Kallio, and decide to move to another, Eira, imagining it to be an unspoiled place where people can live lives of dignity. The journey is an ironic one given that both districts are not so far apart. In this spirit, their journey across the city takes on epic proportions with each of the travellers gradually falling by the wayside due to such travails as marriage, work, and death. In its entirety the film is a wry discussion of humanity within a system that regards humans as subservient components.

Anssi Mänttäri’s low-budget movies with their intimate content have become classics. In this black comedy that takes place in Helsinki in summer the main character (played by Mänttäri himself) jumps from one bar and bed to the next. Especially vulgar black humour.

Manne, Harri, and Ville Alfa are rootless twenty-somethings in search of purpose for their banal lives. After Manne steals a priceless painting from a group of petty criminals, Manne and Harri flee from the gangsters across Finland, while Ville goes to Paris. On the road they meet Veera, an old girlfriend of Harri's, and try to avoid the gangsters in pursuit.

TV play about the legend of Lalli.

Talkative, hyperactive young drifter Ville Alfa goes around Helsinki, basically trying to borrow money from friends and strangers by means of an incessant delivery of quirky and snappy quasi-intellectual lines and fabricated excuses.

Jenna and Joni, twins in their 30’s living in Helsinki, find out that they have a stepsister, Jóna, living in Iceland. Their first meeting in Reykjavik changes the lives of them all. Jenna becomes pregnant and moves to Iceland. Jóna tries to keep distance from her Finnish siblings but Jenna’s children and Joni’s falling ill connects her to the twins. The film starts from a situation where the siblings go through the events seven years later. They all remember things differently.