#10
Monica in the South Seas
2023 | Finland | 72 min | col & b/w | 2K DCP | 1:1,85
Written and directed by: Sami van Ingen & Mika Taanila
Sound designer: Anne Tolkkinen
Producer: Jussi Eerola
Synopsis July 1975. Monica Flaherty, daughter of Robert and Francis Flaherty, cinéma vérité pioneer Richard Leacock and Sarah Hudson – Ricky’s student at MIT –travel to Samoa, to the island of Savai ́i. Monica’s aim is to create ”an authentic” sound version of the silent feature film Moana (1926), directed by her parents in her childhood paradise. Being alien to Samoan culture, Monica, Sarah and Ricky are soon pulled in a complex dynamics of gifts, exchange and honoring.
About the directors Sami van Ingen has made over 30 films, mostly dealing subtly with the act of seeing and using various strategies to manipulate found or forgotten footage. His short film Flame (2018) has won several awards at international festivals, such as Ann Arbor Film Festival, Split FF, Flatpack FF and Fronteira FF. Van Ingen’s films have been screened at Edinburgh FF, Karlovy-Vary, IFF Rotterdam, BFI London Film Festival, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, and at institutions like National Gallery of Art in Washington and Centre Pompidou.
Mika Taanila’s moving image works often address the interaction between technology and memory. Feature doc Return of the Atom (co-directed with Jussi Eerola) focused on the construction of the ill-fated Olkiluoto 3 nuclear plant in Finland. Festival screenings for Taanila’s films include TIFF Toronto TIFF, CPH:DOX, IFFR Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand, Karlovy-Vary, IDFA and Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. His moving image installations have been shown at major international group shows, such as Kassel Documenta, Venice Biennale, Aichi Triennale, Shanghai Biennale, Berlin Biennale and Manifesta.
Screenings
International Film Festival Rotterdam, January 2023
Göteborg Film Festival, February 2023
DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival, February 2023
#9
Grasshopper
2023 | 9 min | color| 4K DCP | 1:1,85
A film by: Jussi Eerola
Music: Stiletti-Ana
Set design: Markku Pätilä
Sound design: Mika Niinimaa
Synopsis Night falls down on empty business premises – and lights go up!
A minimalistic musical.
About the director Jussi Eerola has worked as a cinematographer on many internationally awarded films since 1992. His directional debut was a documentary about electro-hypersensitive people titled Refugees of Technocracy (2009). The Return of the Atom directed together with Mika Taanila premiered at TIFF 2015 and won the NORDIC:DOX Award at CPH:DOX in 2015. Eerola’s first minimalistic short film Blue Honda Civic premiered at IFFR in 2020 and continued to many international festivals receiving three awards.
Screenings
35th Minimalen Short Film Festival, Norway, January 2023
International Film Festival Rotterdam, January 2023
#8
I Might Be Stuck
2022 | 30 min | B&W | cinema performance
Director: Mika Taanila
Script: Harry Salmenniemi
Music: Jussi Lehtisalo
Cinematography: Jussi Eerola
Technical construction: Jari Lehtinen
Synopsis Too many messages received. Where there is no problem, there is no solution.
About the director Mika Taanila is a film-maker / visual artist based in Helsinki. Taanila’s films have been screened at several international film festivals, such as Berlinale, TIFF Toronto, IFFR Rotterdam, Karlovy-Vary Film Festival, IDFA Amsterdam and CPH:DOX. Major international group shows include Venice Biennale (2017), Aichi Triennale (2013) and Kassel Documenta (2012). In May 2015 Taanila received The Ars Fennica Award.
Premiere
Premiere at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, May 2022
#7
Failed Emptiness. Time
(original title: Epäonnistunut tyhjyys. Aika)
2021 | 14 min | B&W | 2K | 1:1,77
Director: Mika Taanila
Script: Harry Salmenniemi
Music: Éliane Radigue
English translation: Lola Rogers
Graphic design: Patrik Söderlund
Producers: Mika Taanila, Jussi Eerola
Synopsis Suddenly there is an enormous amount of time. At first everything is possible. Anything might happen. Gradually the possible becomes impossible.
About the director Mika Taanila is a film-maker / visual artist based in Helsinki. Taanila’s films have been screened at several international film festivals, such as Berlinale, TIFF Toronto, IFFR Rotterdam, Karlovy-Vary Film Festival, IDFA Amsterdam and CPH:DOX. Major international group shows include Venice Biennale (2017), Aichi Triennale (2013) and Kassel Documenta (2012). In May 2015 Taanila received The Ars Fennica Award.
Premiere
Premiere at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, May 2021
#6
Patent Nr. 314805
2020 | 2 min | B/W | 4K DCP | 1:1.85
Director: Mika Taanila
Script: Jussi Eerola & Mika Taanila
Sound design: Olli Huhtanen
English translation: Lola Rogers
Graphic designer: Patrik Söderlund
Producer: Jussi Eerola
The film was produced as part of The Finnish Film Foundation’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Synopsis Finnish engineer Eric Tigerstedt solved the dilemma of sound-on-film already before the First World War. All images and sounds in this short film are produced from the surviving test materials originally created in 1914.
About the director Mika Taanila is a film-maker / visual artist based in Helsinki. Taanila’s films have been screened at several international film festivals, such as Berlinale, TIFF Toronto, IFFR Rotterdam, Karlovy-Vary Film Festival, IDFA Amsterdam and CPH:DOX. Major international group shows include Venice Biennale (2017), Aichi Triennale (2013) and Kassel Documenta (2012). In May 2015 Taanila received The Ars Fennica Award.
Premiere
Premiere at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, May 2020
#5
Blue Honda Civic
2020 | 11 min | color | 2K DCP | 1:1.85
Director, cinematographer & editor: Jussi Eerola
Script: Jussi Eerola & Martti Jämsä
Cast: Kirsi Andersson & Magnus Broman
Sound editor: Olli Huhtanen
Synopsis The romantic landscape paintings often portrayed weather condition, topography of national landscape, religious themes, spirituality of nature and hunting scenes. Blue Honda Civic is a minimalistic road movie mirroring the emotions of the driver through the landscapes (s)he has chosen to look at.
About the director Jussi Eerola has worked as a cinematographer on many internationally awarded short films, documentaries and tv-features since 1992. His directional debut was a documentary about electro-hypersensitive people titled Refugees of Technocracy (2009). The Return of the Atom directed together with Taanila premiered at TIFF 2015 and was given the NORDIC:DOX award at CPH:DOX in 2015. Blue Honda Civic is Eerola’s first short film as a director.
Awards | Selected screenings
Grand Prix of the Compétition Expérimental at Festival Tous Courts in Aix-en-Provence, France
Best Experimental Film at 16th Prague Short Film Festival, Czech Republic
3rd International Competition Award at Short Waves Festival, Poland
Premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam, January 2020
58th Ann Arbor Film Festival, USA
65th Cork IFF, “Signals & Circuits” by aemi, Ireland
Beijing International Short Film Festival, China
Rencontres Internationales Paris, France (Obsidian Blue Pearl)
#4
Realms
2018 | 20 min | col | DCP 4K | 1:2,39
Script & Director: Patrik Söderlund (IC-98)
Cinematographer: Jussi Eerola
Production designer: Markku Pätilä
Animal trainer: Tuire Kaimio
VFX Artist: Jari Hakala
3D animator: Markus Lepistö
Editing: Mika Taanila & Jussi Eerola
Music: Max Savikangas
Sound design: Olli Huhtanen
Producer: Jussi Eerola
Synopsis A short film about geological epochs, kingdoms of life and mass extinctions, Realms voyages through deep time from the primeval ocean to the post-human future, where animate and inanimate nature are levelled to black dust. In the film we see versions of how the same landscape has appeared at different times – how it was before humans and how it will look after we are long gone. Though our own era is just a blink in the eye of the long continuum of epochs, this blind moment with its reliance on energy provided by fossil fuels threatens the future of the entire planet.
About the director Patrik Söderlund is the founding member of artist duo IC-98. Realms is his first film. With backgrounds in visual arts and cultural studies, Söderlund’s and Visa Suonpää’s 20-year collaboration as IC-98 has produced artist publications, site and context specific projects and interventions, animated moving image installations and various public commissions. IC-98 received the Finnish State Art Prize in 2009 and represented Finland at the Venice Biennale in 2015 with Abendland (Hours, Years, Aeons), which was picked by Sundance Film Festival in 2016. Their work has been shown extensively at museums, biennials and festivals in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Premiere | Awards
Premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam, January 2019
Main Award at Festival international Signes de Nuit, Paris
Best Experimental Film at Bucharest Short Film Festival, Romania
Night Award at Festival international Signes de Nuit, Bangkok
Kultainen Varjo Award at Tampere Film Festival, Finland
Student Jury Main Award at Festival internazionale Segni della notte, Italy
Best Cinematography at Arctic Film Festival, Norway
#3
Flame (original title: Polte)
2018 | 15 min | col | 4K and 2K| 1:1,85
Director: Sami van Ingen
Archive material: Tommi Partanen / National Audiovisual Institute
Music: Henri Lindström
Re-recording mixer: Olli Huhtanen / Cinepost Finnvox
Producers: Mika Taanila, Jussi Eerola
Synopsis A fractured melodrama, based on damaged frames from the last minutes of the only remaining nitrate reel of the lost feature film Silja – Fallen Asleep When Young (1937) directed by Teuvo Tulio. All screening prints and the negative of the film were destroyed in a 1959 studio fire. A sequence from the middle of the film was found at La Cinémathèque Française in Paris in 2015.
About the director Sami van Ingen has made over 30 films, mostly dealing subtly with the act of seeing and using various strategies to manipulate found or forgotten footage. His films have been screened at festivals like Edinburgh Film Festival, Image Forum Tokyo, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento in Buenos Aires and at institutions like National Gallery of Art in Washington, Centre Pompidou and Anthology Film Archives.
Premiere | Awards
Premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam, January 2018
Grand Prix of Best Short Film at Split Film Festival, Croatia
Cutters Studio Archival Film Award at the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival, USA
Optical Sound Award at Flatpack Film Festival, Birmingham, UK
Videorama Award at Timishort Film Festival, Timisoara, Romania
Best Short Film Award by Popular Jury at Fronteira Festival, Goiânia, Brazil
Special mention of the Jury, Tampere Short Film Festival, Finland
#2
Tectonic Plate (original title: Mannerlaatta)
2016 | 74 min | B/W | DCP | 1:1,85
Director: Mika Taanila
Text: Harry Salmenniemi
English translation: Lola Rogers
Music: Mika Vainio
Graphic design: Markus Pyörälä
Sound design: Olli Huhtanen
Producer: Jussi Eerola
Synopsis A camera-less lettrist film about the fear of flying, security checks and time zones. After returning from a trip to Tokyo, the nameless protagonist is inexplicably stuck at a hotel near the Helsinki airport. With multi-tasking, the attention and activity of the individual are divided into several directions at once. The use of various technical devices slivers the time management and modifies the jetlagged consciousness.
About the director Mika Taanila is a film-maker / visual artist based in Helsinki. Taanila’s films have been screened at several international film festivals, such as Toronto TIFF, IFFR Rotterdam, the Karlovy-Vary Film Festival, IDFA Amsterdam, Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage and CPH:DOX. Major international group shows include Kassel Documenta (2012), Aichi Triennale (2013) and Venice Biennale (2017). In May 2015 Taanila received The Ars Fennica Award.
Premiere | Selected screenings
Premiere at the Berlinale Forum Expanded, January 2016
Edinburgh Film Festival, UK
Bildrausch Film Festival Basel, Switzerland
Milano Film Festival, Italy
Festival International du Film sur l’Art, Montréal, Canada
Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
Biennale of Moving Image, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Padiglione de l’Esprit nouveau, Bologna, Italy
#1
Abendland (Hours, Years, Aeons)
2015 | 43 min | B/W | DCP | 1:1
Screenplay, directors, drawings:
IC-98 (Patrik Söderlund & Visa Suonpää)
Animator: Markus Lepistö
Assistant animator: Leo Liesvirta
Original score: Max Savikangas
Commissioned by Frame Visual Art Finland for the 56th
International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, 2015.
Synopsis In a twilight world long after the age of man, a twisted ecosystem centered around an overgrown fruit tree undergoes parasitic and geological transformations as hours, years and aeons pass. Realised in Söderlund’s and Suonpää’s signature combination of traditional drawing and subtle digital effects, Abendland (Hours, Years, Aeons) is a poetic meditation on the Anthropocene. It’s a work about the containment of ecological disasters in general, and about repositories for used nuclear fuel in particular (the case in point being Onkalo at Olkiluoto, Finland).
About the directors IC-98 (originally Iconoclast, founded in 1998) is an artist duo comprising Visa Suonpää and Patrik Söderlund. IC-98 projects take the form of installations combining research, text, drawing and animation. They are best known for their animated film installations, which combine classical drawing and digital effects, often depicting landscapes shaped by interlaced forces of nature and technology, navigation and exploitation, climate and migration.
Premiere
Cinema premiere at Sundance Film Festival, January 2016
Upcoming titles
Impivaara
short | 2023 | dir. Patrik Söderlund
Impivaara – A New World updates The Seven Brothers (1870), a novel by the Finnish national author Aleksis Kivi to the 21st Century.
Now the emphasis is on the climate crisis, the energetic basis of a Northern welfare state and the possibility of a peaceful coexistence between humans and non-humans.
