On June 14-18, the 38th Midnight Sun Film Festival offers the audience five days of the most interesting international filmmaker guests, the best of new films, journeys into film history, and midnight sun.
The Midnight Sun Film Festival starts on June 14 already before noon, when the festival opens at 11.30 am with James Gray’s Armageddon Time, set in New York in the 1980s and featuring a very charming Anthony Hopkins. In the opening screening, we celebrate legendary Mexican director Arturo Ripstein, who unfortunately had to cancel his festival visit, but who will be present in the screening through a video message. Despite the cancellation, the Midnight Sun Film Festival will screen a selection of Ripstein’s films, rarely seen in Finnish cinemas. The opening film is The Castle of Purity, in which a father holds his family of seven prisoner.
Of the festival’s special filmmaker guests, one of the leading documentarists in the world, Ukrainian Sergei Loznitsa and French romantic comedy specialist Emmanuel Mouret will be welcomed in Sodankylä on the first day of the festival. Continuing the director’s focus on historical and societal subjects, Loznitsa’s new documentary The Natural History of Destruction will be seen in Cinema Lapinsuu on Wednesday night. The documentary shows the horrors of air raids during the World War II. The festival’s legendary morning discussions start on Thursday with Loznitsa at the Kitisenranta School. From Mouret, the lightly romantic Diary of a Fleeting Affair will be screened on the first festival day.
A new addition to the festival’s group of international guests is Estonian director Anna Hints, whose Sundance-awarded documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood brings the ancient and intimate Estonian smoke sauna tradition to the screen, with its joys and sorrows. Hints will be present in the screening of her film on Sunday, June 18.
On the festival’s opening day, the Finnish premiere of Hanna Västinsalo’s Venice Film Festival world premiering film Palimpsest will be celebrated. Krista Kosonen and Riitta Havukainen star in the scifi drama. Wednesday’s other Finnish guests include Mikko Myllylahti, the director of the Cannes premiere The Woodcutter Story, and Aino Suni, whose confident debut feature Heartbeast is bathed in neon colours. On Thursday morning, director Anna Paavilainen and lead actor Sara Melleri visit the screening of their film Kikka!, which delves into the dark side of the entertainment industry. The festival honours the memory of recently passed composer Kaija Saariaho with an additional screening of Riitta Rask’s new documentary Echoes of the Universe – the Music of Kaija Saariaho. The film’s editor Maria Haipus will be present in the screening.
The festival’s beloved Master Classes also kickstart on Wednesday. Critic Olaf Möller, who enjoys quite the cult status in Sodankylä, has curated the selection titled The Loneliest Road, which delves into Croatian cinema history. In the first Master Class, Möller presents Veljko Bulajić’s Train without a Timetable from 1959 to the audience, a film about rebuilding the country after the Second World War told through the story of a single city.
Other films in the opening day programme include Saint Omer, French Alice Diop’s highly acclaimed true crime adaptation and her jump from documentaries to fiction. Among the festival’s music film selection is Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song, a documentary on the legendary musician himself and on his most famous song. The festival also honours the memory of its 2017 guest Carlos Saura with a screening of his documentary Walls Can Talk, which became the director’s swan song.
We would like to thank our partners:
Trade Union Pro, EU/Creative Media, Finland Festivals, Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, Laitilan Wirvoitusjuomatehdas, Niilo Helander Foundation, the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI), the Ministry of Education and Culture (OKM), the Finnish Film Foundation (SES), the Sodankylä Municipality, YLE Teema, the French Institute in Finland, Embassy of Mexico.
Image: Venni Ahlberg