Documentaries
Melting Dreams
- International co-production SI-FI-AT
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- Haidy Kancler
- Screenwriters
- Haidy Kancler
- Producers
- Bostjan Virc, Ari Matikainen, Sabine Gruber
- Release year
- 2022
- SES grant
- 30 000 €
- Budget
- 403 000 €
- Production companies
- Kinocompany Oy
In the mountains of central Afghanistan, a group of Afghani teenage girls are challenging cultural stereotypes, by learning to ski and bringing it to a professional level through extensive training in Europe.
Bitter Love
- International coproduction SE-FI
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- Jerzy Sladkowski
- Screenwriters
- Jerzy Sladkowski
- Producers
- Ulla Simonen, Antonio Russo Merenda
- Release year
- 2020
- SES grant
- 33 000 €
- Budget
- 520 000 €
- Production companies
- Made
A lovesick misfit, a mysterious beauty, a retired civil servant, a randy fortuneteller and a couple of doubtful, young, charismatic lovers meet in late summer on a Russian river cruise. They have one thing in common – they suffer from emotional problems and doubts. However, they’ve come to the right place. River cruises in Russia are colloquially called “floating matchmaking agencies”. What does fate have in store for them?
Forest Trade Center
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- Jani Salminen
- Screenwriters
- Jani Salminen
- Producers
- Eero Heinonen
- Release year
- 2020
- SES grant
- 79 652 €
- Budget
- 157 000 €
- Production companies
- Art Slow Oy
A social justice feature documentary about Finnish forestry industry.
1997-2004 three major forestry companies in Finland were running a purchase cartel of logging wood prices. Story follows how the cartel issue is treated in Finnish court of law. Appr. 400 000 people in Finland own forest that is potential logging resource, so the impact of running the purchase cartel can be potentially massive on the industry and on Finnish society.
Lead character of the story is campaigning amongst the forest owners to come and join a legal class action, in order to unite the owners in search for justice, in the aftermath of the cartel.
Aalto
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- Virpi Suutari
- Screenwriters
- Virpi Suutari
- Producers
- Timo Vierimaa
- Premiere
- 4.9.2020
- SES grant
- 160 000 €
- Budget
- 580 000 €
- Production companies
- Euphoria Film Oy
- Distribution companies
- Storyhill Oy
Aalto tells the story of Alvar and Aino Aalto, Finnish masters of modern architecture and design. This enchanting couple shared their lives and great passion for organic human-scale architecture. Together they were creating a better and more democratic modern world. In their philosophy, the “little human” was always at the center of the work.
Golden Land
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- Inka Achté
- Screenwriters
- Inka Achté, Hanna Karppinen
- Producers
- Liisa Karpo
- Premiere
- 11.2.2022
- SES grant
- 155 000 €
- Budget
- 275 000 €
- Production companies
- napafilms oy
- Distribution companies
- napafilms oy
Golden Land is a documentary film about Somalian family who assimilated to Finland a long time ago and now decide to move back to Somaliland in the hope of a better future.
Still Into You
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- Anu Kuivalainen
- Screenwriters
- Anu Kuivalainen
- Producers
- Marianne Mäkelä
- Premiere
- 7.8.2020
- SES grant
- 153 000 €
- Budget
- 382 000 €
- Production companies
- Bonsaifilms
- Distribution companies
- Bonsaifilms
Still into You is a documentary film about love, relationships and sexuality of elderly men and women. Five couples show how intimacy is still strong even though age and body has changed.
Tukdam
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- Donagh Coleman
- Screenwriters
- Donagh Coleman
- Producers
- Kaarle Aho
- Premiere
- 30.9.2022
- SES grant
- 130 000 €
- Budget
- 500 000 €
- Production companies
- Making Movies Oy
- Distribution companies
- Cinema Mondo
In what Tibetans call tukdam, deceased meditators show no signs of death for days or weeks. Juxtaposing ground-breaking scientific research and Tibetan perspectives, this creative documentary challenges our notions of life and death, and where we draw the line between them.
Eye to Eye
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- John Webster
- Screenwriters
- John Webster
- Producers
- John Webster
- Release year
- 2020
- SES grant
- 90 000 €
- Budget
- 204 000 €
- Production companies
- JW Documentaries Oy
Restorative dialogue (Redi) is a form of trauma therapy for the family members of victims of violent crime. Under specific circumstances it can be beneficial for them to meet the perpetrator – in most cases the murderer – face to face. The most important criteria for this meeting is that the perpetrator should want to ask for forgiveness for the crime. But the benefits are not only one-sided – this face-to-face meeting can also help the perpetrator come to terms with the crime they committed.
The film follows two such cases over several months. During the film we witness the unlocking of a state of prolonged grief in the families and the beginnings of a healing process, and we see the perpetrators coming to accept responsibility for their crimes. Major themes in the film are love, loss, the power of asking for forgiveness, and the importance of mourning.
Save and Quit?
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- Esa Illi
- Screenwriters
- Esa Illi
- Producers
- Klaus Heydemann
- Release year
- 2020
- SES grant
- 92 500 €
- Budget
- 205 000 €
- Production companies
- Inland Film Company Oy
A feature documentary about today’s youth, about what it is like to grow up in a constantly changing world; a world moving at rapid pace, where almost nothing seems to be certain anymore. Growing up in the era of ‘digitalisation of everything’, sometimes described as ’Liquid times’. It is also a documentary outlining for us that world. The world as it actually is for the teenagers. The world in which our children live, even if we, their parents, don’t.
Writing with Fire
- International co-production: IN-FI
- Category
- Documentaries
- Directors
- Sushmit Ghosh, Rintu Thomas
- Screenwriters
- Sushmit Ghosh, Rintu Thomas
- Producers
- Sushmit Ghosh, Rintu Thomas, John Webster
- Release year
- 2021
- SES grant
- 20 000 €
- Budget
- 219 000 €
- Production companies
- JW Documentaries Oy
In one of the most socially oppressive and patriarchal states of India emerges a newspaper run entirely by rural women belonging to the Dalit or ‘untouchable’ community. Meera, its popular political reporter, decides to magnify the local paper’s impact with an audacious move – to transform from print to a digital news agency. Working in media dark villages, mocked and discouraged, this is the story of a visionary woman’s feisty spirit in building what will probably be the world’s first digital news agency run entirely by rural Dalit women.