Audience’s choice: Mr. Turner

Mr. Turner (2014).

Audience’s choice: Mr. Turner
 

Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner won this year’s audience voting, so the film will be screened once more on Sunday at 9:45 pm at Lapinsuu. The film is a carefully constructed drama on the radical painter J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), whose role in reshaping the art of painting was only realized by future generations.
 

In preparation for his role as Turner, actor Timothy Spall studied painting in order make his brush strokes authentic, while the roles of other artists of the period were only cast with actors who have actually painted in real life. Dorothy Atkinson is magnificent as Turner’s faithful housekeeper. Spall deservedly won at Cannes for his masterly role.

Friday full of surprises

Friday nights silent film was accompanied by Avanti! orchestra. Picture: Santeri Happonen.

The sunny festival Friday was launched with two morning discussions. The audience enjoyed listening about the making of Miguel Gomes’ Arabian Nights and Whit Stillman’s career path, among other things.

Friday’s first surprise was the screening of Whit Stillman’s TV pilot The Cosmopolitans, which even the director himself had not seen on a silver screen until now.

Another TV production screened on a silver screen was Aki Kaurismäki’s Dirty Hands (1989), based on a play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The capacity of the renovated Big Tent was tested by Friday night’s silent film screening. The line to the screening weaved its way all over the festival area, ending outside the gates.

Friday night’s surprise preview screening was surprising indeed: the audience had a chance to see Aleksi Salmenperä’s brand new comedy Häiriötekijä, which has its Finnish premiere this autumn. Actors Tommi Korpela and Eero Ritala were present at the screening.

Morning arrived to the festival in the company of dance and song. Despite delays and technical problems, the atmosphere was sky-high at the Big Tent’s karaoke screening.

Saturday highlights

 Konrad Wolf's Goya (1971).

The festival Saturday begins with Mike Leigh's anticipated morning discussion. The discussion will be broadcast live on Yle Teema.
 

Other highlights include the 70mm screening of Konrad Wolf's Goya at 12.30pm at the Big Tent and Christian Petzold's Phoenix at the same venue at 3.45pm. Saturday's silent film screening features Frank Borzage's Lucky Star accompanied by Antonio Coppola at the Big Tent at 6.15pm.

Be sure not to miss the karaoke screening of Prince's Purple Rain at the Big Tent at 11.00pm. Saturday reaches it's dreamy climax at 3.45am with Wet Dreams at the Big Tent!
 

In addition to films, the festival audience can enjoy the Midnight Sun versus The Rest of the Universe soccer match and the Finnish Broadcasting Company sauna by the river behind the festival area.

Jalakapallo 10v: Midnight Sun v/s Rest of the Universe

Football veteran Jukka Virtanen in the 2013 match. Kuva: Annina Mannila

The festival turns 30, and the annual football match reaches the respectable age of 10. The great battle Jalakapallo 10v: Midnight Sun v/s Rest of the Universe takes place tomorrow, Saturday 13 June at 12.45. Festival workers against festival guests!

Venue: Urheilupuisto pitch along Kasarmintie. All are invited to root for their champions!

Summaries from the Morning Discussions available now

Nils Malmros with Olaf Möller. Image: Saana Kotila.

Summaries from the daily morning discussions with guest directors are available at the Morning Discussions section of the website.

Opening day highlights

The Opening Screening, Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, attracted a full house of festival visitors. Image: Santeri Happonen

The 30th edition of The Midnight Sun Film Festival got started on Wednesday June 10 in a festive atmosphere. The life and works of longtime Festival Director Peter von Bagh were celebrated in an extensive five-hour-long matinee, but the festival also turned its gaze into the future. The festival audience got to experience films in a new, bigger and bolder version of the classic festival tent.

The official opening screening at Cinema Lapinsuu attracted a full house of festival visitors and special guests. This year’s opening film was Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake - after decades of anticipation, the celebrated British director has finally arrived at the festival. In the coming days, Leigh will be enjoying the festival atmosphere, with an extensive look into his career and thoughts coming up on Saturday’s morning discussion.

In his opening speech, the festival’s Artistic Director Timo Malmi gave an assertive list of reasons for the festival’s continuing existence after the passing of Peter von Bagh: Midnight Sun Film Festival is an absolutely essential champion of film culture in Finland. Malmi noted that the recent case of Helsinki’s Maxim cinema shows that it is possible to gain victories in this struggle.

The new Big Tent, capable of hosting more than one thousand people, also had its very own opening ceremony. The opening film was Peter von Bagh’s The Count (1971). One of the film’s female stars, Titta Karakorpi was present at the screening to share memories of the The Count’s making, and after the film ended, surprise guest Kiti Neuvonen gave an emotional performance of the film’s theme song.

However, another event attracted festival visitors to the Big Tent already before the official opening. The festival’s long-time partner Kemijoki Oy presented a film about the company’s growth and served the audience liquorice and refreshments. The film “Padottu voima - Kemijoen tarina” showed that Lapland’s modernization process was not painless. Director Michael Franck referred to the film as an instrument of redemption and compared the filmmaking process to a therapy session. Many families financed their children’s education with money from the reservoirs, but some of those children lost their childhood landscapes underwater.

With the first festival day turning into night, this year’s series of 70mm films also got its noble start. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey held the audience in its intensive grip long into the night, leaving everyone hungry for more masterpieces in the 70mm format.

Thursday's picks

Festival audience at the School. Image: Santeri Happonen.

On Thursday morning, the legendary morning discussions of Sodankylä will return. The first turn at the School bench is taken by Nils Malmros - who is also dubbed as "the Nordic Truffaut". Other picks from the programme: Ville Suhonen's "Ompelijatar", a documentary film about the last woman to have been executed in Finland, will be premiered at 17.45 in the Small Tent. At night, all will be invited to Suomi Finland Sing-Along at the Big Tent at 23.15!

Remember also that the festival restaurants are open from 8am to 2am!

All special screenings Thu 11th June

10.00 Morning Discussion NILS MALMROS: School

12.45 70 MM – Iljenko (Mustalla merkitty valkea lintu) Big Tent

14.15 Presentation of the Sodankylä Award Small Tent, free entry

15.15 Master Class – OLAF MÖLLER (Before Tonight Is Over) Small Tent

15.30 3D – Godard: Goodbye to Language Lapinsuu

17.30 Master Class – MIGUEL MARIAS (Nazarin) Lapinsuu

17.30 70 MM – Hitchcock (Vertigo) Big Tent

23.15 Karaoke  – Suomi Finland Sing-Along Big Tent

10th June 2015 Peter von Bagh matinee: The Life and Deeds of Peter von Bagh

Producer-director Jouko Aaltonen, researcher Sakari Toiviainen in the background. (Image: Juho Liukkonen)

Miguel Marías, Bernard Eisenschitz and Olaf Möller. Image: Juho Liukkonen.

The 30th Midnight Sun Film Festival began with a commemorative matinee held in Cinema Lapinsuu in honour of the late Festival Director Peter von Bagh. In the Finnish part of the event, the festival’s Artistic Director Timo Malmi interviewed film researcher Sakari Toiviainen and director-producer Jouko Aaltonen, who had both been von Bagh’s working partners.

Discussing von Bagh, the foremost thing that came up was the amazing range of his roles from that of an internationally renowned critic to researcher and filmmaker. Von Bagh’s opus on Finnish art history, Song of Finland, received a special mention when Aki Kaurismäki came up to the stage and recommended that the book be included as a mandatory part of Finnish school syllabus. Aaltonen took note of von Bagh’s exceptional ability to perceive wide-ranging topics in his works.
 
Von Bagh’s working partners were of the opinion that his childhood in Oulu as well as the early passing of his mother partly explained the director’s productivity and cinephilia - for Peter, film clubs were a window to the world, as Sakari Toiviainen phrased. The director got his career in festival programming started early on in film clubs, eventually leading him to direct international film festivals. The panelists remembered von Bagh as someone who preferred to avoid bureaucracy and who as a director liked to allot responsibility and freedom to everyone.
 
Three of von Bagh’s early short films were presented in the matinee, including the student occupation film Vanhan valtaus (1968), in which, according to Toiviainen, there is already present the interplay of fact and fiction typical of von Bagh’s works. The political themes of this film reached their apex in the film Socialism, released last year. The conversation also touched on the recent digitalisation of film screenings, of which “Petteri” was strongly against. However, von Bagh valued the sense of community brought on by the cinema-experience even more highly than the correct screening format.
 
The second part of the matinee featured Olaf Möller interviewing critic Miguel Marías and film historian Bernard Eisenschitz on von Bagh’s body of work. The international guests partly emphasized the same aspects as their Finnish colleagues, praising von Bagh for his tireless productivity, insightful associations, wide-ranging erudition on different fields of art and history, as well as his part in making Finnish cinema known internationally.

The new Big Tent was officially opened

Esa "Nätsi" Rosvall and Aki Kaurismäki. Image: Sini Juutilainen.

The new Big Tent was opened by the freshly baked "King of Tents" Esa ”Nätsi” Rosvall.

The opening screening for the Tent featured Peter von Bagh's film The Count (1971), in which the serial charmer Pertti Ylermi Lindgren performed as himself. Present at the screening were Titta Karakorpi, who played one of the female leads in the film, and Kiti Neuvonen, who sang a magnificent version of Nuoruustango, the theme song of the film.

The official opening of the festival, featuring the screening of Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, took place at theater Lapinsuu.