Category: Features

“It started
as a hobby,” Samuli Torssonen, the man behind the Star Wreck saga and the face
of Captain Pirk, the ultimate emperor of the Universe, explains. “I’m a
huge fan of the Star Trek series and movies since I was kid.  I liked it so much that I had to make
something similar. It was my way of expressing my fandom”. In 1992, a teenage
Samuli created a simple 2D animation movie with three spaceships shooting at
each other. It was his first step in the universe of Star Wreck. As he admits,
the graphics are bad, the story is bad, almost everything was bad… but the core
of the story is there: Pirk, Mr. Fukov, Mr. Dwarf, the Plingons… The big
Finnish parody of Star Trek had begun.

The last
episode of the series so far, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning has become a cult
movie, downloaded millions of times from Internet. For being an amateur movie,
it counters with astonishing computer-generated special effects.  “During the seven years that this project
lasted, several computers worked non-stop at my apartment”, admits Samuli.

Star Wreck
is all do-it-yourself philosophy. The production started with a small camera, a
portable television, a couple of 25 euro work lights and a broken wheelchair, Timo Vuorensola says. “Samuli contacted
me through some friends and asked me to play the role of Colonel Dwarf in 1997
for Star Wreck V,” Timo recalls. “The requirements were that he needed a guy
who can speak loudly and a guy who is tall and has long hair.” He ended up
being the director.

Internet hit

The
Internet and word of mouth have been the distribution channels that made Star
Wreck widely known. “People got
interested in us because we were giving it for free. The best way to market
your film is to get a lot of people watch it,” according to Timo.

As Samuli tells us, Star Wreck went to the Internet very early: “We released the first movies in 1997
and it was amazing because there were no movies at that time in the Internet.
Then people started contacting us through newsgroups and our message board”.

That is how
Star Wreck started to be a collaborative effort that gathered more than 300
people working voluntarily. For the forthcoming projects the team wants to keep
the community idea of the project: “We
would like to use the Internet to make a collaborative film,” says the director.
”The whole concept is that there are not only us making the film, but also our
fans. That keeps on giving the same kind of freedom to create. The idea behind
this attitude seems to be based on open source software: “For some reason this
kind of thinking is very Finland-based,” he continues. “We have Linux and a
couple of other phenomena. If it’s done so effectively in computer programs,
why not in the film industry?”

The open source idea is also applied to the ways the movie is
distributed. It is released under Creative Commons license and freely
distributed from the movie’s official website and peer to peer networks.
Copyright battles are not in the Star Wreck agenda: “For me, piracy the
funniest thing in the world,” says Timo. ”I’m more afraid of the things that
are done against it, like the Digital Rights Management (DRM), which is
preventing people from using the  available technologies."

{mosimage}Iron Sky

Samuli’s production team is currently ready for the next project. It
will start with a large budget. So far, only the title, Iron Sky, and a promotional
picture have been released.

Do expectations affect these guys? Samuli admits that “people are
expecting something a little bit better, but we want to make something way much
better”.

Timo thinks that one way to improve is to be very careful with the
story: “Everybody knows that we are able to make great special effects. I have
a feeling that we have a very strong story that people don’t expect from us”

And obviously, after so many years working hard together, the guys have
become a great family, cheering up each other when going through bad times.
“Low moments usually last a couple of hours, and get solved with some beers. We have our own working methods. We
know what the others are thinking. There are no big problems between us. Now we
are four working as the core team, very strongly involved. Most probably we
will be working like this in the future, although it is true that we will need
to expand a bit. We need more professional people joining. However, it is a
hard process to include someone into a group that has worked together for such
a long time”. And expert hands have joined the team, since it was recently
confirmed that writer Johanna Sinisalo
will contribute to the script.

As a last question, we wanted to know what people’s reactions are when
they see the supreme emperor of the universe walking around Finnish streets: “I
have noticed in Tampere that people stared at me, but not really in Helsinki.
In bars Finnish guys come and talk about the movie…they find the courage when
they are drunk in the toilet!” Samuli laughs.

Dusty
villages, hopeless teenagers, old dancing wizards, corrupted school
principals…a tough reality. From eight different countries of Sub-Saharan
Africa, 22 contemporary short films and documentaries will arrive in Tampere
for the annual film festival. The majority originate from Zimbabwe and Uganda
where a growing film industry is organizing an impressive amount of new
international festivals.

As one
might expect, this “black cinema” is still rudimentary in structure and in
style. It’s a developing cinema. Nevertheless, it tells strong and intense
stories that will help European audiences understand the African reality. The
variety of themes is outstanding too. Tawanda Gunda’s Peretera Maneta (Spell my
Name, Zimbabwe, 2005) is a tough tale about child abuse, while Caroline
Kamya’s Rockmilley (2006) portrays
Uganda’s only Elvis Presley impersonator.

During the
festival, the warm colours of Africa will fade into the white and grays of the
North. Those colours will be the background for the traditional clothes of the
Sami people. There will be a retrospective of the films made by the Sami, with
special focus on the works of Paul-Anders Simma. Those screenings will be
celebrated with concerts, including a performance of Amoc, the first rapper in
Sami language.

Not only
exotic cultures will be represented, since well-known directorial names like
Aki Kaurismäki and Krzystof Kieslowski will also have some screen time too.
Kieslowski’s documentaries from the ‘60s and the documentary work of fellow
Polish filmmaker Kazimierz Karabasz will also be shown in Tampere. Kaurismäki’s
fans will also be able to enjoy the early works and short movies of the Finnish
master.

{mosimage}

Avant-garde from France

Last year’s
winner of the Grand Prix of the Tampere Film Festival, the young French
filmmaker, Jean-Gabriel Périot will return to Tampere for a retrospective of
his work. Périot represents an avant-garde form of documentaries and short
films. He creates hypnotic series of images of roads and paths (Dies Irae) or
digs in the archives to document shameful historical moments with sharp editing
and a full load of political commentary.

How would
you describe your filming technique?

I use
different kinds of techniques. For example, for a movie like Even If She Had Been a Criminal…, I
used classical techniques of editing created by Russian avant-garde, especially
by Dziga Vertov. For movies like Dies
Irae, it's very specific because it's something like animation that creates
movements by accumulation of images. However, I didn't create the images, I
used archives. The rendering of a movie like this is made by the very fast
editing of the pictures, but like there is always the same element in the
picture, such as a road, something happened between the animation of the road
and the flow of the entire pictures.

Does it
take very long to find the appropriate materials (film and photos) in the
archives?

Yes, very
long, because I use a lot of archives – something like 10,000 pictures for Dies Irae, for example. However, I know
where find them and which picture or movie I could use regarding author's
rights and copyright laws.

What are
your motivations to create those political films?

I don't
find our world particularly peaceful and I'm afraid whether soon it will be
worthwhile. As we are too few to start the revolution, making movies is my way
to do something!

Of this year’s two featured countries, the
Danish series focuses on the rise of Danish cinema with the likes of this
year’s esteemed IDFA winners and films from the two generations of Leths, Jørgen, the celebrated film-making
father and Asger, his son – both of
who are also attending the festival this year – while the Viva México! series showcases the past and present of Mexican documentary
film with astounding new titles and rare treats.

Other series include a selection of
brand-new Finnish documentaries (see below), the Winners & Bestsellers series
for, well, bestsellers and winners, an all-encompassing retrospective to the
wonderfully colorful filmography of Oscar-winning (Fog of War) American documentarist, Errol Morris and a whole lot more – go to www.docpoint.info to get the complete
listings. Fiction is going down – get the facts!

The FREE! Three for
DocPoint 2007:

Jukka Kärkkäinen:
Tupakkahuone/Smoking Room (2006), 57
minutes.

Of all the fine Finnish documentaries on
show, FREE! picks out Kärkkäinen’s hauntingly beautiful film
portraying Finns of different ages and in different situations as they reflect
their life in the quiet solitude of a smoking room at work, in a hospital and
on a train. Ascending a simple portrait documentary, Kärkkäinen takes his film
beyond its simple surface, turning the smoking room into a confessional where
the bittersweet collage of life, like the smoke from a cigarette, slowly twists
and turns on itself before dissipating into nothingness. Tupakkahuone is one of the most stunning Finnish documentaries in
years, being simultaneously timeless as well as sharply freeze-framing a moment
in time. All Finnish documentaries are shown with English subtitles.

Errol Morris: Vernon, Florida
(1982), 55 minutes.

{mosimage}Even though the entire Errol Morris retrospective
could be categorized as ‘must-see-cinema’, for sheer absurdity, the pick of the
litter has to be his second film, Vernon, Florida. Focusing
on the eccentric denizens of the titular town, Morris lets the citizens do
their own talking – and the things they talk about truly make Twin Peaks seem not that
far-fetched after all. Among other things, God, the meaning of the word
‘therefore’ and the finer points of turkey hunting are all discussed, making Vernon
the oddest slice of the American Pie on show at this year’s DocPoint. And with Jesus Camp on the menu, that’s not bad
at all.

Juan Carlos Rulfo: In the Pit/En el Hoyo (2006), 85 minutes.

{mosimage}Rulfo’s film follows the lives of a number of construction workers
building a gigantic elevated expressway in Mexíco City, a veritable microcosm revolving
around hard physical labor. The construction site is a place where lives are
lost, deals are made and life discussed in abundance, as Rulfo holds his focus tightly
on the working lives of a few men, almost shutting out the massiveness of the construction
site and the hubbub of the surrounding mega-city. In addition to its wonderful
ambient soundtrack, In the Pit features
breathtaking cinematography, as Rulfo takes his camera on top of the girders
and to the bottom of the pits where his characters work creating an intimate connection
to the nature of work, which is then generously complemented at the end of the
film with a magnificent tracking shot that captures the impossible magnitude of
the project and hammers the film into its context like nothing you’ve ever seen.

DocPoint: 24th-28th
of January in selected theatres around the city, single tickets for €6,
screening cards for 33€/50€.

All of the films shown had English subtitles, so Fox Days makes a perfect occasion for the non-Finnish speaker to get a better idea of what is going on in the Finnish short film scene.

{mosimage} Short length does not necessarily mean low quality; rather, just the opposite. The authors try to show fresh and condensed ideas, and universal feelings like love, betrayal, or loneliness, and hot topics like couple relations or social integration were very present during all the days that the festival took place. There was also time for good sense of humour and Finnish irony in films like Järvi or Heitelläänhän Kääpiötäkin.

List of winners

Best Professional Documentary: Paanajärven Anni – Lasse Naukkarinen
Best Student Documentary: Nimeni On Alma – Johanna Vanhal
Best Professional Fiction Film: Luonto ja Terveys – Panu Heikkilä
Best Student Fiction Film: Painajaiset – Jan Forsström
Best Animation Film: Polle – Sara Wahl
Best Film not exceeding three minutes length: Äijät – Working group from the children and youth cultural centre Vernissa in Vantaa

{mosimage}The movie is based on the 12-episode TV series Fragments (Irtiottoja) shown in Finland during the autumn of 2003 in which the taxi driver Veli-Matti was one of the main characters. At the same time as the series were filmed, the same crew did the shooting of Frozen City. “It was planned this way from the very beginning and both were done at the same time”, explains Louhimies, before the premiere of the film. “In addition to the series, we wanted to create something for the international viewers and the festivals”.

As a matter of fact, Frozen City has premiered in many festivals across the world during 2006. Recently, Aku Louhimies received the Robert Wise Award for Best Director at Flanders International Festival in Ghent, Belgium. “I’m really happy and surprised about the reception of the film”. It does not matter that the film is much attached to Helsinki, because “the theme and the story are universal”.

Veli-Matti’s drama drags him into the most painful situations of the human life. In the words of the actor Janne Virtanen, “a man who loves his children is willing to go all the way to get to keep them. To me Vellu is a positive, empathic and well mannered man. I wanted him to believe to the end that things are going to get better. This way I was able to react to every bad episode with astonishment and disbelief. That helped me make Vellu a bit slower and, if you will, not so bright (but not stupid either).”

Equally complex is the character of Veli-Matti’s ex-wife, Hanna, played by Susanna Anteroinen. The actress admits that “acting was sometimes hard because Hanna was so tired of everything, particularly her husband. She was depressed and she thought that getting divorced was only way to continue her life.“

Helsinki plays an important role as the scenario for the drama. The city is presented in a pessimistic way. “It is seen as a dirty city where unhappy people are living”, explains Susanna Anteroinen. “{quotes}The taxi driver Vellu hopes that the snow will come and cover everything that is sad and bad.{/quotes} He doesn’t belong to the city and he should live somewhere else with his family. Living in the city is not good for everyone”. Janne Virtanen agrees with this perspective of Helsinki, but he thinks “it is not probably the real Helsinki. Aku wanted to show international viewers his own version of the city. It is not that hopeless to live here”.

The film had a very low budget. These limitations allowed a wide creative freedom for the director. “It would have been difficult, otherwise”, Louhimies explains. “Finland is a very small country and it is not always possible to shoot these kinds of stories”. Even non-professional actors participated in the film, such as policemen and guards who appeared in the film performing their real duties.