Temples of Dreams

A portrait of film actor Kari Väänänen. Väänänen talks openly about his work and himself. Väänänen's colleagues in "Tuntematon Sotilas" and "Lakeuden Kutsu" shed light on the actor's inner life.

Acclaimed Finnish director Rauni Mollberg made several scandalous yet widely appreciated films. Former co-worker Veikko Aaltonen’s eye-opening documentary The Dinosaur looks at the relentless, often disturbing directing techniques behind Mollberg’s art and success.

Helsinki, Forever is a montage film about the city of Helsinki by the award-winning Finnish film director and academic Peter von Bagh. The film draws a portrait of Helsinki and also acts as an essay on Finnish culture in a wider sense. It shows Helsinki as captured by leading Finnish feature film and documentary makers over a period of one hundred years.

Following the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman assumes responsibility for Dent's crimes to protect the late attorney's reputation and is subsequently hunted by the Gotham City Police Department. Eight years later, Batman encounters the mysterious Selina Kyle and the villainous Bane, a new terrorist leader who overwhelms Gotham's finest. The Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy.

Forced to travel to a horror festival with her boyfriend, a young woman begins experiencing premonitions associated with the urban myth of The Creeper. She believes that something supernatural has been summoned — and that she is at the center of it all.

Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.

A hijacked 767 will crash in just 97 minutes when its fuel runs out. Against the strong will of NSA Deputy Toyin, NSA Director Hawkins prepares to have the plane shot down before it does any catastrophic damage on the ground, leaving the fate of the innocent passengers in the hands of Tyler, one of the alleged hijackers on board who is an undercover Interpol agent - or is he?

29 years after the events of Iron Sky, the former Nazi Moonbase has become the last refuge of mankind. Earth was devastated by a nuclear war, but buried deep under the wasteland lies a power that could save the last of humanity - or destroy it once and for all. An old enemy leads our heroes on an adventure into the Hollow Earth. To save humanity, they must battle the Vril, an ancient shapeshifting reptilian race, and their army of dinosaurs.

In modern-day Helsinki, two lonely souls in search of love meet by chance in a karaoke bar. However, their path to happiness is beset by obstacles – from lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism, and a charming stray dog.

12 year old Tinja is desperate to please her mother, a woman obsessed with presenting the image of a perfect family. One night, Tinja finds a strange egg. What hatches is beyond belief.

In the French harbor city of Le Havre, an elderly shoeshiner with an ailing wife crosses paths with a young African refugee pursued by the police for deportation.

Arriving in Helsinki, a nameless man is beaten within an inch of his life by thugs, miraculously recovering only to find that he has completely lost his memory. Back on the streets, he attempts to begin again from zero, befriending a moody dog and becoming besotted with a Salvation Army volunteer.

A restaurateur befriends a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived in Finland.

The ever-poker-faced Ilona loses her job as a restaurant hostess, as her tram driver husband, Lauri, also finds himself out of work. Together they must hit the streets of Helsinki, facing up to hardship and humiliation in their quest for survival, guided through the gloom by a ray of hope.

In the year 2012 historian Raimo Lappalainen wants to illustrate how life was 50 years earlier. He becomes obsessed with the fate of a 1970s nude model Saara Turunen, and finds a perfect actress to reconstruct her life and death in front of a TV camera. Meanwhile, a strike at a nuclear plant is covered up by the media.

A film group is making movie in the little town. Writer Pentti Töysä interrupts film group's press conference and claims that script is written by him and it is based on true story. Töysä also says that he has written a new ending to the movie and that it reveals an old murder. Not everyone is happy about the new twist.

After losing his job and realizing that he is alone in the world, a businessman opts to voluntarily end his life. Lacking courage, he hires a contract killer to do the job. Then, while awaiting his demise, he meets a woman and promptly falls in love.

Ilona, a young teacher, arrives in a village in Tavastia. She and Aarne, the wealthy owner of the Niskavuori farm, who is frustrated with his marriage, fall in love. The relationship becomes a public secret. Aarne's wife Martta, who owns half of Niskavuori, wants to hold on to her husband until the last. For Loviisa, the matriarch of Niskavuori, the most important thing is the reputation and honor of the family.

While at the reception, Inkeri overhears the doctor telling the nurse behind the corner that there is no life expectancy or hope left. Inkeri's daughter Maija takes it upon herself to care for her mother, even if it means forcing her, but Inkeri has other plans. As her last act, she intends to save Maija from repeating her own mistakes and then throw herself into the Arctic Ocean. Inkeri escapes from the nursing home for her final journey with her steel-haired friends and Matti, who has tagged along. Before reaching the Arctic Ocean, Inkeri throws herself into life: painful memories, intense emotions, and forest rave.

Two young lovers, Anna and Martti, are split apart but are reunited many years later when their lives have changed considerably. Anna is a war widow; Martti a writer, is married, and has five children.

A rustic comedy about a small-town bowling alley entrepreneur who learns that being scammed is not the end of the world.

Aging professor of mathematics completes his life's work, a research project that has taken him decades, and climbs up from the boiler room (his study) and back to real life. He can hardly recognize his rebellious teenage kids and materialistic wife who hardly seem to notice his existence. The only person who is interested in the professor's work is Marja, his son's girlfriend and freshman at the university. An innocent infatuation flares up between the old man and the young girl, while the professor's family is only interested in the prize money awarded to the professor by an international jury for his academic achievements.

When the anarchistic princess of her own life, Princess Itty Bitty is told that her little brother, who still lives in her mother's womb, is about to move into her room, she's had enough. Drawing on the wisdom of her quirky neighbor, Auntie Jenssen, Itty Bitty devises a plan and conjures the bossy grown-ups to Hilldiggle with the help of her magical dog, Sausage.

The title of the Finnish film Elokuu translates to August. Directed by Matti Kassila, one of Finland's premiere filmmakers, Elokuu was adapted from a novel by Nobel prize winning finnish author F.E. Sillanpää. Simply put, the story concerns the decline and fall of a once-proud family, thanks to the alcoholism of its paterfamilias. Toivo Makela delivers a powerfully effective performance as the inebriated protagonist, avoiding the usual "drunken" cliches. The overlong running time, coupled with the downbeat nature of the subject, limited the film's worldwide appeal.

The youth working group will produce a short film, from scriptwriting to post-production, during the summer and August. They will be introduced to the different aspects of filmmaking and will be assisted by a mentor and a mentor philosopher. The work will be carried out in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and the production headquarters will be at the Hapessa Youth Activity Center in Sörnäinen.