Heli Kota

We tend to see our geographic map as static. On the contrary, this work full of subtlety shows us that life in an archipelago is by nature affected by the winds and tides which constantly change its shape. As the film says, "the sea will be land, and the land was once sea."

Shades of light, dark, and significantly grey, are explored in Orbit, which depicts notions of adultery. In this project, which blends elements of concrete and abstract, women of various ages give insights into their thoughts and feelings on their affairs. As they do, the black and white preconceptions slowly begin to melt off rugged, wrinkled, skin, which the camera interprets from an almost obscenely close distance.

“A person has to have something to live for”. Pentti is a 94-year-old widower who steps into a new phase in his life having found filmmaking – and the feisty Lea.

Filmed in a barren fishing community off the Icelandic coast and a trendy hotel in Helsinki, A Seal Story is a queer take on a contemporary love triangle. It takes its inspiration from the legend, where seals were believed to be former human beings who voluntarily sought death in the ocean. Once a year, they were allowed to come on land, strip off their skins and amuse themselves as human beings.

Filmed in a barren fishing community off the Icelandic coast and a trendy hotel in Helsinki, A Seal Story is a queer take on a contemporary love triangle. It takes its inspiration from the legend, where seals were believed to be former human beings who voluntarily sought death in the ocean. Once a year, they were allowed to come on land, strip off their skins and amuse themselves as human beings.

ICELAND (Nighttime) explores the collective mindset of anxiety and hope in epic, post-catastrophic landscapes. The video engages the most fundamental of human experiences: love, hope, fear, solitude and togetherness. Set in Icelandic landscapes that are romantic yet inhospitable, ICELAND (Nighttime) deals with the sensibility that we are close to the end of the world as we know it.

A narrator from an undefined future discusses love, hope, future, beginnings, myths, environmental disasters and vanished species. The video investigates the possible end of an era, its entangled histories, open-ended narratives and flux identities. It aims to carefully glimpse into the possible futures of humankind and other kind: the vital necessity for co-dependence and urgency to remember, preserve and act now.

The video resembles a nursery rhyme about different months, but within the poetic lines looms allusions to a planetary catastrophe. In a transformed world, resilient creatures like cockroaches, coyotes, and fungi are ready to take the stage.

Four friends in their early twenties are discussing about the big issues in life while the entrance examinations for The Theater Academy are approaching.