The 41st Midnight Sun Film Festival will be held from morning to night from 10 to 14 June 2026. With its traditional silent film screenings, the event brings audiences to laughter, tears, and music, as well as the landmark moments in film history.
This year’s silent film concerts will feature three classics, each representing a unique “big bang” moment in film history. The first feature film by English-born Charlie Chaplin, The Kid (1921), will be screened. Like Chaplin, the Swedish Victor Sjöström and the Austrian G. W. Pabst have also undeniably earned the status of masters. We will see their films He Who Gets Slapped (1924) and Pandora’s Box (1929).
The Kid marks the first appearance of the filmmaker’s famous tramp character in a feature-
length film. The indomitable yet endlessly kind Tramp takes an abandoned boy (Jackie
Coogan) under his wing and offers him unconditional love, but when the hard-hearted
ones assert the law of the strongest, the Tramp puts up a tenacious fight. As Peter von
Bagh once remarked, Charlie Chaplin belongs not only to the history of cinema but to the
history of humanity as a whole.
Chaplin’s film will be accompanied by Dutch pianist Maud Nelissen, a familiar face from
past Festivals. She specialises in silent films, but above all in Chaplin’s works. Nelissen
has a direct connection to the film’s music, as she has met composer and arranger Eric
James, who worked on the music for The Kid for the film’s 1971 re-release. Nelissen is, in
fact, the only musician to have received permission from Chaplin’s family to perform the
film’s music as a solo piano piece.
While Chaplin’s film marks the first steps of an unforgettable character, Victor Sjöström’s
He Who Gets Slapped marks the beginning of the renowned MGM film studio. The U.S.
studio’s famous lion logo was already flanked by the Latin phrase Ars gratia artis, "art for
art’s sake", at the time of this film, the studio’s very first, and the studio stood firmly behind
its motto. He Who Gets Slapped tells the story of a scientist (Lon Chaney) who suffers
humiliation before his colleagues and his wife and flees to the circus to become a clown.
This poetic tragedy became a success both at the box office and with critics.
Sjöström’s film is accompanied by the Italian quartet Agnusdei + Cavina + Pilia + Raia. In
the quartet’s original score, electronic elements blend with, among other things, electric
guitar and saxophone, allowing the film’s emotional depth to resonate even today.
G. W. Pabst’s erotic psychodrama Pandora’s Box can be credited with the birth of one of
cinema’s most luminous stars. The U.S. actress Louise Brooks had already been acting
for a few years, but it was the role of Lulu that turned her into an icon, an eternal ‘it girl’
and the symbol of an entire era. In the film, Brooks plays a woman who drifts from one
ordeal to the next, seducing and being seduced, resorting to violence yet also falling victim
to it. Brooks stunned audiences with both her character’s modern sensibility and her
naturalistic acting.
Pandora’s Box will also be accompanied by pianist Maud Nelissen. She will be joined by
Slovenian multi-instrumentalist Eduardo Raon, who will play the classical harp at the
screening and also produce electronic effects. The duo say they are aiming for a musical
version of the film’s “enigmatic chiaroscuro”, moving from dazzling light to dark shadows.
Louise Brooks moves along the same spectrum in her most famous role.
The festival will take place from 10 to 14 June, running from Wednesday morning until
Sunday evening. The programme and guest artists will be announced in May 2026. The
programme guide will be published on Monday, 25 May, and ticket sales for the festival will
begin at the same time. Advance ticket sales will begin online on Wednesday, 27 May.
The Midnight Sun Film Festival would like to thank its co-operation partners:
Sodankylä Municipality, Finnish Film Foundation, Trade Union Pro, Kemijoki Oy, Genelec,
Finnish Cultural Foundation, Kemijoki Oy, Laitilan Wirvoitusjuomatehdas Oy, EU Media
Creative, Tähtikuitu Oy, Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, YLE Cinema Ritrovato