Janne Laine

Child No. 182 is a documentary film about child protection practices in Finland in the 60s and 70s. It tells the story of a little girl who is placed from orphanages to summer colonies and foster homes. The film is based on the reports of social service officials and other authorities and is shot mainly on 8mm film. Director Camilla Roos makes a deep dive into her own childhood from her birth to when she was 8 years old.

The Kind Stranger is a moving, at times comical film about the ASMR community, whose members try to ease each other’s pain by making youtube videos of tender care, quiet whispers and close up attention. We see the many hours of work that “ASMR artists” put into making their videos – and their presence and sincerity. In the age of anxiety, ASMR aspires to fulfill our ancient, primal needs. We are all a bit broken, but human beings are incredibly inventive when it comes to finding ways to reach out to our kind.

Sorrow Tamers is a documentary about people who have chosen to face sorrow without avoiding it or running away from it. The film is about love, change, sorrow and abandonment.

The region of Lake Turkana, located in Kenya and Ethiopia, is considered to be “the Cradle of Humankind”. Among other finds, primate fossils from millions of years ago have been discovered in the region. But what about the region’s modern inhabitants and their relationship to their environment? Iiris Härmä, whose previous work includes the award-winning Leaving Africa, had the chance of joining Helsinki University’s researchers, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares and Mar Cabeza, on their pre-pandemic trip to study the Daasanach people’s relationship to their environment through traditional animal tales. The researchers hope that storytelling would help to bridge the gap between people’s everyday lives and conservation efforts.

In the Kosovo War, human dignity was shattered by the terrors of the Serbian government and the Albanian liberation army. Truths about the victims’ fates faded away, which is why a Finnish forensic research group led by Helena Ranta got a mission to act as an unbiased agent and investigate the real course of events.

A young Finnish woman escapes an enigmatic love affair in Moscow by boarding a train to the arctic port of Murmansk. Forced to share the long ride and a tiny sleeping car with a larger than life Russian miner, the unexpected encounter leads the occupants of Compartment No. 6 to face major truths about human connection.

Old woman looks outside her apartment window and sees her life passing, or dancing, in front of her eyes.

Old woman looks outside her apartment window and sees her life passing, or dancing, in front of her eyes.

Reconstruction tells about a certain night in 1982, reconstructed in 2020 by the people who lived it through together. The film combines dance, drama and documentary, but most of all is a story of a friendship of a boy and a girl, and how jolly situations can turn sour and how, even though close, friends do not share same experiences – and that can have an effect on their friendship.

Documentary about a Finnish reporter, Hannu Karpo. The movie follows Karpo's decades-long career as a journalist, and how he became a phenomenon and known by the whole nation.

Själö means 'the island of souls', and no name could be more fitting for the island in the Baltic Sea, which for centuries was a last stop for women who were considered social outcasts – and who are today forgotten. They were forcibly placed in a closed institution to be studied, measured and weighed – exactly in the way that nature itself was starting to be examined around the same time. Today, the place is a research centre. A young female scientist collects samples on the island, while the whispering voices of the past and never-sent letters echo in the empty hallways.

Själö means 'the island of souls', and no name could be more fitting for the island in the Baltic Sea, which for centuries was a last stop for women who were considered social outcasts – and who are today forgotten. They were forcibly placed in a closed institution to be studied, measured and weighed – exactly in the way that nature itself was starting to be examined around the same time. Today, the place is a research centre. A young female scientist collects samples on the island, while the whispering voices of the past and never-sent letters echo in the empty hallways.

Year 1915. Helene Schjerfbeck lives as a forgotten artist with her elderly mother in the countryside. It has been years since the last exhibit, and Helene continues to paint only because of her passion. Everything changes when art dealer finds Helen and her 159 wonderful paintings - and wants to organize a big private exhibit. However, Helen's turning point comes only when she is introduced to Einar Reuter. Young Einar is a forester, art enthusiast, and a passionate admirer of Helene's work. He becomes Helen's trusted and lover.

An intimate portrait of a family coming to terms with decades of institutional abuse and the impact it has had and is still having on their lives.

A poignant portrait of a family of asylum seekers desperate to start a new life, but stalled in bureaucratic limbo.

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1951. Criminal investigator Anders Olsen follows the case of a bank robber who eyewitnesses say appears to have been acting under some kind of trance.

The film follows Finnish army machine gun company in Continuation War against Soviet Union, 1941–1944. Based on Väinö Linna's best selling novel Tuntematon Sotilas (The Unknown Soldier) and the novel's uncensored version, Sotaromaani (A War Novel).

War and Peace of Mind explores what war does to the human mind and how both, the individuals and the nation as a whole, survive it psychologically. Finland and WWII, locally known as continuation war, is the backdrop of this documentary.

War and Peace of Mind explores what war does to the human mind and how both, the individuals and the nation as a whole, survive it psychologically. Finland and WWII, locally known as continuation war, is the backdrop of this documentary.

Career woman finds out that her boyfriend is living a secret double life. She finds a bag of money and decides to make a run for it. She is accompanied by a little girl who is also on a run from her criminal step-father. Together they're trying to make it to her grandmothers house.

A weekend father wants to bond with his teenage daughter by taking her with him to the carwash. They end up on a life-changing adventure in the supermarket, at the endless sanitary towel aisle. They get "help" from an older lady who shares intimate stories of her experience, some about menstruation, some on wildly different topics.

Other Girls tells the story of four young girls nearing graduation, all of them struggling with various issues.

June 14, 1941, 3 a.m. Over 40000 people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are deported by Soviets to Siberia. Among them is a philosophy student Erna, a happily married mother of a little girl. Separated from her husband Erna and her daughter are dispatched together with other women and children to remote Siberian territories. Despite hunger, fear and brutal humiliation Erna never in next fifteen years loses her sense of freedom and hope of returning to homeland. The story is inspired by real events.

After being fired from his job at a newspaper for writing a destructive review of a celebrated movie, Fred, an aspiring writer, learns that his girlfriend is pregnant.

Aaron, a young misfit living in a remote Scottish fishing community, is the lone survivor of a strange fishing accident that claimed the lives of five men including his older brother. Spurred on by sea-going folklore and local superstition, the village blames Aaron for this tragedy, making him an outcast amongst his own people. Steadfastly refusing to believe that his brother has died, he sets out to recover him and the rest of men.

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.

Director Sonja Lindén's personal and sensitive quest to the core of the modern information society where technology and human beings get more and more entwined. This documentary explores our society on the verge of turning ubiquitous - a wireless society, where the laws of time, space and distance are revolutionizing the concept of liaison. Do the consequences of the technological revolution increase our freedom, or do they limit us? Is it possible to find a balance between one's natural rhythm and the society that spins at an ever increasing and demanding speed? Are we chasing echoes of our lost inner wholeness in our everyday lives, which are becoming busier and more fragmented than ever before?

A Roma beggar on his knees raises many extreme emotions: guilt, rage, sympathy and frustration. Most people just walk on by, but there is always someone willing to help. In this film, the director follows the confrontations between the Roma beggars from Romania and Finnish people, and is forced to question, over and over again, her own ideas about helping.

A Roma beggar on his knees raises many extreme emotions: guilt, rage, sympathy and frustration. Most people just walk on by, but there is always someone willing to help. In this film, the director follows the confrontations between the Roma beggars from Romania and Finnish people, and is forced to question, over and over again, her own ideas about helping.

Fred Daly returns to Ireland with nowhere to live but his car. Then dope-smoking 21-year-old Cathal parks beside him, and brightens up his lonely world. Encouraged by Cathal, Fred meets attractive music teacher Jules. Growing closer, these three outsiders are set on a course that will change their lives forever.

A rough but beautiful documentary film about the crisis of a man in his forties and his desire for a better life; its a story of parenthood, alcohol, Finnish man and his desire for love. It is also an unusually intimate depiction of the relationship between the father and his son. Despite the seriousness of the topic the film includes black humor and situational comedy

A mid-level manager who develops an aversion to being a good person questions his morality as he faces the challenges of middle age and loses control of his life.

In this stylish Finnish drama, the secrets and desires of a family can no longer be suppressed. Mikko turns out to have a hereditary illness. Since then he has been worried. How long can he continue to run the family business that he and inherited from his father, just like his illness? And how does he tell his teenage daughter and adult son that they might have the wrong genes? The imaginative eight-year-old Lumi, adopted from China, also cannot get away from her roots.

In 1982 the guilt-ridden 18-year-old Rupert tries to remember and understand the events of the past amidst the chaos of the present

A film about memory, identity and the overwhelming power of love. One-year-old Devi was found starving at a railway station in Delhi. The police took her to Palna, an orphanage, where she lived for a year. When Devi learned to talk she often wanted to talk about Amma, her first mother. In the film, the 6-year-old Devi journeys to her own past, as her family adopts another daughter from Palna, a baby sister for Devi.

A film about memory, identity and the overwhelming power of love. One-year-old Devi was found starving at a railway station in Delhi. The police took her to Palna, an orphanage, where she lived for a year. When Devi learned to talk she often wanted to talk about Amma, her first mother. In the film, the 6-year-old Devi journeys to her own past, as her family adopts another daughter from Palna, a baby sister for Devi.

The Gypsies have lived in Finland for hundreds of years and they form a significant minority in country. Nevertheless, their every day life is not very well known by the majority and few people understand the issues young Gypsies struggle with.

Autumn in Estonia, where six people live, six solitudes, prisoners of the monotonous architecture of Soviet-era concrete buildings, in search of human companionship, of love, of a ray of light in an ocean of gray.

Based on an acclaimed 1935 novel about the War of Liberation (1918-1920) that ensured Estonia's independence, the film tells about a group of young schoolboys heading to the front to fight the army of Soviet Russia.

About photographer Inka and her loved ones on a journey to the fountains of love. Inka leaves her betrothed Jonah at the dinner table and leaves their shared home in a bang, not knowing why yet.

An old dog has a hard time learning new tricks in this drama set in Turku. Ari, a paramedic, is a chronic womanizer; he makes it a point of pride to never sleep with the same woman twice, and his nights are a long series of brazen one-night stands. But when Ari meets Tiina (Laura Malmivaara), something unexpected happens - he falls in love. For the first time, Ari finds himself pursuing a long-term relationship, and he makes a genuine effort to remain faithful to her. But old habits die hard; Tiina introduces Ari to her circle of friends and temptation arises as he encounters Hanna-Riikka, a theology student, and Ilona, who is soon to be married. Despite Ari's feelings for Tiina, he begins having affairs with both Hanna-Riikka and Ilona, leading to an unpleasant revelation on the day of Ilona's nuptials. ~ Mark Deming, Allrovi

A guard on the Soviet-Chinese border who, after surviving a deadly attack, decides to become a monk but must continually prove along the way that he's capable of becoming the enlightened man he set out to be.