The final day of the Midnight Sun Film Festival started under sunny skies. The morning discussion featured two guests: German director İlker Çatak and Gabe Klinger, who made the move from critic to director. Each reflected in his own way on his path to becoming a filmmaker — and on what cinema fundamentally means for them.
Meanwhile, in the Red Tent, audiences took in Marie-Elsa Sgualdon’s debut feature Silent Rebellion (2025), which moves seamlessly between history and the present moment. As noon drew near, a soft patter began to sound inside the tents as grey clouds covered the sky and brought the rain with them.
The rain did nothing to faze the festival crowd, however, and the school hall filled up at half past twelve in the familiar way for the legendary and much-loved Leffaraati. The festival’s annual Leffaraati film jury originally came about when Jukka Virtanen, who once hosted the TV show Levyraati, visited the festival, and the idea was born to review short films using the same format. This year Leffaraati was led by actor, host and DJ Lina Schiffer, with Tuomas Rantanen, Iida Simes, Elina Knihtilä, Kari Hietalahti and Aleksi Salmenperä on the panel evaluating the shorts.
In the afternoon, Olaf Möller’s final master class screening of the year began in the big tent. The film in question was Lina Wertmüller’s Don’t Sting the Mosquito (1967), which Möller described as “Wertmüller at her strangest.” He introduced the film by talking about the director’s career and about the musicarello genre in general. Möller noted that the film’s colour palette was so wild that the audience would need sunglasses to watch it.
At the same time, the Red Tent hosted Aleksi Salmenperä’s true-to-life film Isänpäivä (2026). Salmenperä was present at the screening to answer questions from the audience. Also on hand was the film’s actor Tommi Korpela, with Heikki Kujanpää as interviewer. The post-screening discussion touched on, among other things, working with non-professional actors and the lifelong friendship between the two lead actors.
The first encore by popular request was festival guest Abderrahmane Sissako’s Bamako (2006), one of the landmark works of 21st-century African cinema. The second encore was Mika Kaurismäki’s Amongst the Birds (2026), a charmingly funny documentary set in the mountain landscapes of Iceland, exploring the lives of migratory birds and the human companions who watch them. The final encore was Marina Person’s California (2015), which carries the viewer into the neon glow and mixtapes of São Paulo. The film is a luminous portrait of youth — honest, warm and gloriously messy with life.
Colourful umbrellas filled the rainy school yard as people queued for the festival’s last screenings around half past nine. Street musicians played their final sets of the day to the delight of those waiting in line. See you again next year.
Pictures: Taika Marttinen ja Sami Sorasalmi