Monsterimies

When filmmaker Mari Soppela took her children and husband to live for a year on a sacred mountain in her native Finland, she was fulfilling a lifelong dream to share the arctic wilderness of her childhood with her family. But when years later her children turn the camera onto her, she is forced to confront her motivation for filming their lives in this searching and searingly honest cinematic exploration of identity, belonging and motherhood. Filmed over the course of 27 years, Mother Land challenges us all to examine the landscapes we carry within us and the narratives we create to make sense of our lives.

When two former top orienteers end up in a snowstorm in Lapland wilderness, they face an impossible orienteering task: how to reach your destination when you can't tell earth from sky?

September of 1944, a few days before Finland went out of the Second World War. A chained to a rock Finnish sniper-kamikadze Veikko managed to set himself free. Ivan, a captain of the Soviet Army, arrested by the Front Secret Police 'Smersh', has a narrow escape. They are soldiers of the two enemy armies. A Lapp woman Anni gives a shelter to both of them at her farm. For Anni they are not enemies, but just men.

After a herd of reindeer are mysteriously found dead following a meteor crash in a remote part of Lapland in northern Sweden, soldiers and a geologist are called out to investigate.

Green lights dance across a star-filled sky, and snowflakes sparkle on the trees. It is little wonder Lapland is famous as a realm of elves and flying reindeer, the magical home of Santa Claus. This northernmost region of mainland Europe, however, is a real place, with real animals such as reindeer, Great Gray owls, wolverines, eagles, wolves, musk oxen and Brown bears who live out their lives in the tundra and forest.

The Finnish War 1808-1809 is over and Russia has conquered Finland from Sweden. All weapons in the country are meant to be handed over to the new ruler, but in some small places people are preparing for an uprising.

Northern small town girl, 18 year-old Henna is literally blinded by envy after stalking Silja, a girl moving from South and who seems to get everything Hanna dreams of. Diva of Finland is a story about rivalry between young women and getting over it.

A dissatisfied teen disappears from his small town, leaving friends to wonder about his whereabouts.

Narrated by Golden Globe winner, Donald Sutherland, this is the incredible story of Ailo, the little reindeer. This uplifting tale follows the journey of baby Ailo as he navigates his first year of life in the snowy landscapes of a picturesque Lapland. Frail and vulnerable, Ailo must learn to walk, run, leap and hide to ensure he survives the long, treacherous journey with the herd. Ailo’s Journey is an inspirational story, in which a bleak wilderness is warmed by a mother’s endless love as she watches over Ailo in his incredible adventures with other creatures of the Arctic.

Selling the Silence is a creative documentary film. It witnesses the rise and fall of one family of entrepreneurs, the Kuukkanen family from Salla, Lapland, side-by-side with the current changes in the values of our society. In combining private and personal family memories with ongoing changes in the scenery, the documentary asks: How to avoid irreversible changes in the nature when earning your living? Selling the Silence is a journey to the North, past and present. Sometimes the journey can be surprising, sometimes sad, sometimes absurd in a black Finnish way. When the film asks: ”What is the price of the wilderness?”, it is also a question of identity: Who you really are? What is your real nature?

Tornionjokilaakso at the end of the 19th century, Paloniemi's landlord Heikki tries to get out of his financial difficulties with the help of his son Juhan and Nuottaniemi's only daughter Hanna. The happiness of Hanna, who has fallen in love with Antti of Rehti Koskenalusta, is threatened by the evil and dangerous Korpikoski.