The “Gems of New Cinema” series of the 32nd Midnight Sun Film Festival serves a profuse number of outstanding fresh works from all over the world, supplemented with a collection of music films and author portraits. Former Twilight-starlet Kristen Stewart, who has broken into international front row these past years, stars in two different films in Sodankylä.
The 2016 Cannes Palme d’or winner Personal Shopper, an intriguing psychological thriller by Olivier Assayas, will at last be screened in Finland. Another Stewart-starred film in Sodankylä is a fine episode film by the predominant female director of the American independent filmmaking, Kelly Reichardt, also starring Michelle Williams and Laura Dern.
The debut feature film of American-Korean director kogonada takes place in surroundings designed by Eliel Saarinen’s American architecht son Eero Saarinen in mid-western Columbia, Indiana. Columbus studies the relations of people, their consciousness and their surroundings in an intelligent way. In her second full-length film Strange Birds, Élise Girard’s literary grasp and absurd sense of humor do justice to romantic comedy about a romance between a 27-year old girl from the countryside and a 76-year old Parisian book dealer.
A Quiet Passion, the new film by Terence Davies, another former Sodankylä guest, follows the descent of poet Emily Dickinson (Cynthia Nixon). The memory of Andrzej Wajda, who died in March at the age of 90, will be honoured by screening his final work, Afterimage, a film about the fate of an artist and art professor Wladyslaw Strzeminski in post-war Llodz, where Wajda studied film at that time.
From Hungary, Midnight Sun Film Festival will be able to see “family flick” It’s Not the Time of my Life by Szabolcs Hajdu, where an unexpected visit from the in-laws quickly turns sour. Romanian new wave is represented by two films: Christi Puiu’s realistic Sieranevada takes us to a family gathering beyond comparison and Radu Jude’s Scarred Hearts tells the story of an aspiring Jewish writer Emanuel who gets to heal his tuberculosis in a sanatorium on the shore of the Black Sea in anti-Semitic 1930s.
My Happy Family by Georgian-German tandem Nana & Simon is a captivating portrayal of the emancipation of a middle-aged women from the shackles of patriarchal family. Brazil’s most famous actress Sonia Braga makes a stunning return to international success in Aquarius by Brazil’s leading director Kleber Mendoca Filho as the last resident of a seaside apartment block standing against her neighbours, money and corruption.
More and more quality class action film is coming from Asia these days, especially South Korea. Animation wizard Yeon Sang-Ho’s first feature fiction film Train to Busan is an apocalyptic, high-voltage suspension film featuring class awareness and lethal virus carrying zombies. Have a Nice Day, a Chinese animation thriller by Liu Jian, is a gangster film about contemporary China with political undertones.
Alongside music films by our international guests and the annual karaoke screenings, other music films will also be seen in Sodankylä. A legendary Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, who Pedro Almodóvar described as “the rough voice of tenderness”, is honoured by documentary film Chavela by Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi. Vargas will also startle in an Almodóvar rarity The Flower of my Secret, which hasn’t been screened on television in Finland. In Jim Jarmusch’ splendid documentary film Gimme Danger, Iggy Pop and punk group The Stooges provide entirely different musical thrills.
Filmmaker portrayals have become an essential part of Midnight Sun Film Festival experience. This year’s masterpiece is 1986 Sodankylä guest Bertrand Tavernier’s personal love confession Journey through French Cinema, a three-hour trip into the history of French film. Bill Morrison’s captivating Dawson City: Frozen Time restores and reconstructs over 500 previously lost short films to tell the story of Dawson City, one of the most essential towns during the time of the Gold Rush.
The shower murder scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is thoroughly examined in Alexandre O. Philippe’s thorough fan documentary film 78/52. Hitch’s heir to the throne Brian de Palma’s works get the respect they deserve in Noah Baumbach’s and Jake Paltrow’s precise and exhilarating interview portrait De Palma. From De Palma’s own filmography, Phantom of the Paradise, is both a cult classic and a brilliant complement to the silent film screening of Phantom of the Opera.
Not only directors are under a magnifying glass: Mifune: The Last Samurai by Steven Okazaki appreciates Japan’s most famous actor Toshiro Mifune above all as the first non-white action hero. In Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog, Mifune and Kurosawa comes close to American film noir.
Awarded at Cannes film festival, the documentary Cinema Novo by Eryk Rocha is an inspiring essay about 1960s Brazilian “new cinema”. Rocha’s piece pulsates like Brazilian samba.
More information about the 32nd Midnight Sun Film Festival’s programme coming soon!