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Saturday culminates in the festival\u2019s second karaoke screening, the jubilant queer favourite The<\/i> Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert<\/i> (1994), which takes ABBA to the Australian outback. Stephan Elliott\u2019s film also happens to be one of drag artist Pola Ivanka\u2019s <\/b>favourites. Having studied singing, Ivanka isn\u2019t content merely to pucker her lips and imitate artists, as the film\u2019s characters do. She leads the audience in song with all her might and her dazzling presence.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s programme is exceptionally rich in the field of music. Among the documentaries are two Finnish icons: Tuomari Nurmio\u2019s concert film 13 Kylm\u00e4\u00e4 laulua<\/i> and the recently released Mikis and Me<\/i>, which tells the story of Arja Saijonmaa. From around the world, we have a trio of aces: It\u2019s Never Over, Jeff Buckley<\/i> (2025), Boy George & Culture Club<\/i> (2026) and Broken English<\/i> (2025), which ranks among the all-time greatest music documentaries and features the final live performance by Marianne Faithfull, who passed away last year.<\/p>\n
The Festival\u2019s Masterclasses and guest sessions will feature international names whose expertise is as strong as their cinephilia, as well as top Finnish talents who delve into the secrets of experimental film and their own personal film histories.<\/p>\n
Jon Wengstr\u00f6m, <\/b>Senior Curator at the Swedish Film Institute, is our neighbouring country\u2019s leading expert on early cinema. In Sodankyl\u00e4, Wengstr\u00f6m will present a series of early 20th-century short films, both fiction and documentary, restored using various methods. For some of the films, only a single analogue copy exists, so the fragile history of cinema is very much present. Wengstr\u00f6m, who is particularly well-versed in the work of silent film master Victor Sj\u00f6str\u00f6m, will also present Sj\u00f6str\u00f6m\u2019s US hit He Who Gets Slapped <\/i>(1924), which will be screened as part of the silent film series.<\/p>\n The Midnight Sun Film Festival. Carte Blanche guests have been given complete freedom to select their own favourites for the Festival. And who’d be better to interpret questions of freedom and power than Martti Koskenniemi, <\/b>Professor Emeritus of International Law. The academician has selected two films for the programme: Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s paranoid classic The Conversation<\/i> (1974) and Terence Davies\u2019s masterful family drama The Long Day Closes<\/i> (1992) \u2013 both directors having visited Sodankyl\u00e4.<\/p>\n German film expert Olaf M\u00f6ller <\/b>once again presents lesser-known gems of film history in his Masterclass. He will take us on a journey through European musicals of the 1960s, whilst reminding us of this joyful chapter in pop history. The best-known director in the series is probably the Italian Lina Wertm\u00fcller. The star of her film Don\u2019t Sting the Mosquito <\/i>(1967) is superstar Rita Pavone. More big names from the world of pop music feature in Michel Boisrond\u2019s French film Find the Idol <\/i>(1964), which includes performances by Charles Aznavour, Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan, amongst others.<\/p>\n American professor of film studies Jennifer Lynde Barker<\/b> has curated a series of animated films around the themes of change and female directors. <\/b>They connect otherwise diverse films from countries including Hungary, Estonia, and the United States, spanning from the 1950s to the present day. <\/b>In D\u00f3ra Keresztes\u2019s film One Two Three <\/i>(2005), cats turn into men, whilst in Anu-Laura Tuttelberg\u2019s work On the Other Side of the Woods <\/i>(2014), the subject of transformation is the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. At its best \u2013 as is the case here \u2013 the transformation takes place before the viewers\u2019 eyes but also within their minds.<\/p>\n Director and visual artist Mika Taanila\u2019s <\/b>Experimental Film Night School never ceases to propel the eyes into the silver screen dance and thoughts into a wild gallop. The collection of short films curated by Taanila includes, among others, the late visionary Ken Jacobs\u2019 final work, The Whole Shebang <\/i>(2019), which shatters the notion of coherent spaces and the two-dimensionality of film. Representing Finnish cinema and also the oldest work in the series is the early 8 mm film Minirusetti <\/i>(1978) by the wild video artist Anneli Nygren, a dark parody of a children\u2019s programme.<\/p>\n The Midnight Sun Film Festival does not overlook the foundations of film history. The 1950\u2019s Early Works series, organised in collaboration with the Archive Film Festival Network, presents the early films of renowned masters that challenge the notion of a unified New Wave. The fiercely original works of Stanley Kubrick<\/b>, Jacques Tati<\/b>, Agn\u00e8s Varda <\/b>and Andrzej Wajda <\/b>refuse to go with the flow.<\/p>\n The festival programme also features beloved films by <\/b>French auteur Jean-Luc Godard<\/b>, Polish maestro Krzysztof Kie\u015blowski, <\/b>and Japanese master Yasujir\u014d Ozu<\/b>. In addition to Ozu\u2019s fiction films, Daniel Raim\u2019s documentary The Ozu Diaries <\/i>(2025) will be screened, portraying the philosopher-artist on the one hand and the alcohol-fuelled clown on the other \u2013 and revealing how his masterpieces came into being.<\/p>\n The Festival will be held from 10 to 14 June, from Wednesday morning to Sunday evening. The programme and guest filmmakers 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.<\/p>\n Midnight Sun Film Festival would like to thank its co-operation partners:<\/b><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Keskustelu.jpeg\")
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