Terje Vigen

Terje Vigen. Skådespel i fyra akter
Terje Vigen

SE 1916. PC: Svenska Biografteatern. P: Charles Magnusson. D: Victor Sjöström. SC: Gustaf Molander, Sjöström – based on the poem by Henrik Ibsen (1852). DP: Julius Jaenzon. AD: Axel Esbensen, Jens Wang. COST: A. Bloch. M for the cinema: Rudolf Sahlberg. CAST: Viktor Sjöström (Terje Vigen), Bergliot Husberg (his wife), August Falck (the Lord), Edith Erastoff (the Lady). Originally 1129 m. The new restored edition from Cinemateket / Svenska Filminstitutet (2005), 1031 m /17 fps/ 53 min * norske tekster * e-subtitles in Finnish by Saara Villa, operated by Lena Talvio * viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 10 Nov 2009

Revisited: Victor Sjöströms noble, magnificent film, the first masterpiece of the Golden Age of Swedish cinema, also a contender for Sjöström's best film. The grip is vigorous, more dynamic than in certain later films by Sjöström. - This Swedish film is in Norwegian. We screened this film for the first time in our cinema with Finnish subtitles. Henrik Ibsen's poem has never been translated into Finnish before, and now Saara Villa had created a poetry translation that enhanced the experience.

I lifvets vår

I livets vår / Första älskarinnan / I vårens tid
Elämän keväänä / Elämän keväässä

FR/SE 1912. PC: Pathé Frères Filial. D: Paul Garbagni. SC: Abdon Hedman – based on the novel Första älskarinnan (1848) by the Swedish author August Blanche. DP: Julius Jaenzon. M for a cinema orchestra: Gustav Erbs (Röda Kvarn, Tukholma), Axel Broberg (Fenix, Tukholma). CAST: Victor Sjöström (Cyril Alm), Anna Norrie (Cyril's mother), Georg af Klercker (commercial counselor von Seydling), Selma Wiklund af Klercker (Gerda von Seydling, his daughter), Mauritz Stiller (lt von Plein), Astrid Engelbrecht (Sara Andersson, widow, Gerda's "substitute mother"), Victor Arfvidson (Brooms, a shady character). 1052 m / 17 fps/ 54 min
Restored: Cinemateket / Svenska Filminstitutet (2008) - based on the original negative at La Cinémathèque française - tinting based on original colour information.
E-subtitles in Finnish by Lena Talvio. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 10 Nov 2009.

Revisited one of the earliest Swedish feature films, for generations believed lost, last year miraculously restored from the original negative. For the aficionado of the golden age of the Swedish cinema, it's a treat with fine cinematography by Julius Jaenzon, the unique chance to see the three top directors Sjöström, Stiller and Klercker as actors in the same film before they become directors, and the only extended surviving sample of Stiller as an actor. - While the film is professionally made, it is not, however, particularly remarkable. - It is notable, though, that the acting is pretty restrained already.

Helena Westermarck (exhibition)

Helena Westermarck (1857-1938)
Amos Anderson's Art Museum, Yrjönkatu 27

From the Museum's presentation:

"Finnish artist Helena Westermarck's paintings, literary oeuvre and social conscience indicate a rare gift. Few have paved the way for women in the late 1880s in Finland with such versatility and steadfastness than Westermarck through her life's work. As a painter she was radical for her time: depicting maids and servants naturalistically, to the utter dismay of some. Helena Westermarck was faced with the dilemma of having to choose between painting and writing. As time passed, the writer in her took the upper hand. Her considerable literary production encompasses art historical essays as well as women's rights and other social issues.

Westermarck is not as well-known as her closest colleagues the so-called "painter sisters" – e.g. Helene Schjerfbeck or Maria Wiik – who studied art at home and in Paris in the 1880s. For many, Westermarck is better known as an author and advocate for women's rights. Most of her works belong to private collections and are thus seldom exhibited rarities.  The exhibition at Amos Anderson Art Museum is therefore a rare opportunity to familiarise oneself with Westermarck's moving depictions of people and landscapes.

Some sixty of her oil and water colour paintings will be displayed, among them the striking Abyssinian, a study of a model painted in Paris in the 1880s, as well as her most polemical painting An Important question (later known as the Ironers). The exhibition also presents paintings by her contemporaries, e.g. Gunnar Berndtson and Albert Edelfelt who painted subject-matter related to Westermarck´s Ironers. Her relation to the so-called "painter sisters" is elucidated with paintings from Brittany and Paris by Helene Schjerfbeck and Maria Wiik and others."

http://www.amosanderson.fi/#lang=en&page=e86

Fine art in the traditional realistic vein, genre scenes, portraits, showing a new consciousness in the contents but not in the form. Westermarck was an artist all her life, but in later life she focused more on writing and political action. Her brother was the father of Finnish sociology, Edvard Westermarck.

Marko Vuokola (exhibition)

Galerie Anhava, Mannerheiminaukio 3
Digital C-prints, Diasec

Big landscape photographs of shores, surges, islands, dawns. For meditation and imagination.

Veikko Huovinen and the Forest (seminar)

A tribute to Veikko Huovinen at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 6 Nov 2009.
Together with the Veikko Huovinen Society, as a part of the Metsäpäivät (The Forest Days).
Together with Metsähallitus (The Finnish Forest Administration), bringing to finish our celebration of their 150th Anniversary. The curator of the special series was Tuulikki Halla.

Veikko Huovinen (b. 7 May 1927, d. 4 October 2009, Sotkamo) was to be the guest of honour, himself. In August we got word from him that his presence should not be announced. After a quick and devastating illness he died in early October.

The main speaker was Asko Alanen, my brother, an avid Veikko Huovinen reader since childhood. He spoke about the cinema and television adaptations based on the work of Veikko Huovinen. The first cinema film, Lampaansyöjät [Mutton Eaters] was a disappointment, but the second one, Koirankynnen leikkaaja [Dog Nail Clipper] hit the bull's eye. The third one, Havukka-Ahon ajattelija [The Thinker from the Hawk Meadow] [sorry about the terrible direct translations], on Huovinen's signature protagonist Konsta Pylkkänen, is forthcoming in a few months.

On tv, Veikko Huovinen has been quite well treated, thanks to the inspired direction of Pauli Virtanen and the insight of Heikki Kinnunen as the spirit of Huovinen and also as Konsta Pylkkänen.

The tv miniseries Havukka-ahon ajattelija (1971), Hamsterit (1982), Veikko Huovisen lyhyet erikoiset (1984-1986), Lentsu (1990), and Konstan Pylkkerö (1994) have all been worthy, and the four last-mentioned have been coincidentally published on dvd this year.

Asko emphasized with insight the great question of language. Veikko Huovinen's stories are language-driven, and Pauli Virtanen, for instance, has met the challenge successfully, acknowledging the primacy of the word.

Because of the emphasis on language, Veikko Huovinen belongs to the hidden treasures of Finnish culture. His sense of humour is of the kind that can launch incredible fits of laughter, but only in Finnish.

Cretinetti As a Master of Italian Comedy

Cretinetti italialaisen komedian mestarina / Cretinetti som den italienska komedins mästare
From: Il Cineteca di Bologna. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 4 Nov 2009

Cretinetti re dei ladri
[Cretinetti, varkaiden kuningas]
IT 1909. PC: Itala Film. Starring André Deed (Cretinetti). 100 m /16 fps/ 6 min
Restored: L'Immagine Ritrovata (2007) in the project of restoring Italian films at Filmoteca de Catalunya, financed by Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Cineteca di Bologna ja Cineteca del Friuli. No titles.
Cretinetti fails as an amateur thief.

Cretinetti ficcanaso
[Cretinetti työntää nenänsä joka paikkaan]
IT 1909. PC: Itala Film. Starring André Deed (Cretinetti). 99 m /16 fps/ 6 min
Restored: L'Immagine Ritrovata (2005) from a nitrate print.
Cretinetti meddles with things and lands into trouble every time, having his head forged on an anvil and falling into a pit on a construction site.

Cretinetti distratto
[Cretinetti hajamielisenä]
IT 1910. PC: Itala Film. Starring André Deed (Cretinetti). 168 m /16 fps/ 9 min
Source of preservation: American Film Institute. No titles.
Cretinetti wakes up in the middle of his sleep and finds himself in outlandish situations, walking through a mirror and falling through the roof.

Come fu che l'ingordigia rovinò il Natale a Cretinetti
[Cretinetti ja ahneuden palkka]
IT 1910. PC: Itala Film. Starring André Deed (Cretinetti). 237 m /16 fps/ 13 min
Source of restoration: Museo Nazionale del Cinema. Dutch titles.
The greedy boy Cretinetti eats up all his Christmas pastries before Christmas. In Cretinetti's nightmare, Santa Claus takes him into Heaven, where he wreaks such havoc that God commits him into Hell.

Il regalo di Cretinetti
[Cretinettin lahja]
IT 1911. PC: Itala Film. Starring André Deed (Cretinetti), Valentina Frascaroli. 164 m /16 fps/ 9 min
Source of restoration: Archivo Nacional de la Imagen - Sodre (Montevideo). Didascalie italiane
Cretinetti tries to bring a gift to his sweetheart. He loses the flowers. The tableware set breaks into pieces. Finally he buys a piano, but in the great chaos he is stuffed inside it.

Cretinetti s'incarica del trasloco
Müller übernimmt den Umzug / [Cretinetti muuttaa]
IT 1911. PC: Itala Film. Starring André Deed (Cretinetti), Valentina Frascaroli. 150 m /16 fps/ 8 min
Deutsche Zwischentitel
Moving Cretinetti style: a tornado of furniture.

Il Natale di Cretinetti
[Cretinettin joulu]
IT 1911. PC: Itala Film. Starring André Deed (Cretinetti), Valentina Frascaroli. 132 m /16 fps/ 8 min
Source of restoration: Archivo Nacional de la Imagen - Sodre (restored 2002). Didascalie italiane
Cretinetti carries an immense load of gifts, including a Christmas tree, a rifle and a wooden horse. He bumps onto a mailman, and accidentally get with him a package with three bottles: elixir of fear, elixir of mirth, and elixir of fury. At the Christmas party, first Cretinetti and soon everybody else is going amok with the elixir.

Comique et drames de la Collection Will Day

Comic Films and Dramas from the Will Day Collection / Komediaa ja draamaa Will Dayn kokoelmassa
1901-1913. Compilation: FR 1997. Archives Françaises du Film / Centre National de la Cinématographie. 35 mm, 609 m /20 fps/ 26 min. Titres français / English titles
Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 3 Oct 2009 (History of the Cinema / AFF 40th Anniversary)

The Devil in the Studio
GB 1901. PC: Paul's Animatograph Works. D: Walter R. Booth. 33 m
How To Stop a Motor Car
GB 1902. PC: Hepworth Manufacturing Co. D: Percy Stow. Cast: Cecil Hepworth, T.C. Hepworth, Claude Whitten. 54 m
The Village Fire Brigade
GB 1907. PC: Williamson Kinematograph Co. D: James Williamson. 96 m
That Fatal Sneeze
GB 1907. PC: Hepworth Manufacturing Co. D: Lewin Fitzhamon. Cast: Thornton Harris, Gertie Potter. 75 m - the biggest laugh of the programme!
Why Girls Leave Home
US 1908. PC: Edison Manufacturing Company. Cast: Thornton Harris, Gertie Potter. 75 m
[If We Only Knew]
US ?1913. PC: American Biograph. D: attributed to Anthony Sullivan. Cast: Blanche Sweet, Henry Walthall, Dolores Costello, Harry Carey. 231 m

Will Day loved comedy and preserved Walter Booth's 1901 trick film, The Devil in the Studio, pro-duced by Robert W. Paul, and two wonderfully inventive notions from the Hepworth studio, Percy Stow's How To Stop a Motor Car (1902) and Lewin Fitzhamon's That Fatal Sneeze (1907), as well as James Williamson's delicious A Village Fire Brigade (1907). From America comes a witty Edi-son parody of a stage melodrama, Why Girls Leave Home (1909) and in a startling contrast a 1913 drama from Biograph, If We Only Knew, distinguished by Billy Bitzer's spectacularly photographic effects. (David Robinson, Pordenone 1997)

Revisited a funny and touching compilation from the Will Day collection. - In the prints sent to us, the first three films were also included in the Points de vue compilation.

Le Cinéma des origines dans la Collection Will Day

The Origins of the Cinema in the Will Day Collection / Varhainen elokuva Will Dayn kokoelmassa

1890-1912. Compilation: FR 1997. Archives Françaises du Film / Centre National de la Cinématographie. 35 mm, 230 m /20 fps/ 10 min. Titres français / English titles
Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 3 Oct 2009 (History of the Cinema / AFF 40th Anniversary)

Hyde Park, London
GB ca 1890. P+D: William Friese-Greene. Original format 65 mm, ca 1,9 m
Kings Road, Chelsea, London
GB ca 1890. P+D: William Friese-Greene. Original format 60 mm, ca 2 m
Stereoscopic Film: Hyde Park
GB ca 1890. P+D: William Friese-Greene. Original format 166 mm, 4,55 m
Station Ménilmontant, Chemin de fer de ceinture
FR 1896. P: Gaumont-Demenÿ, Comptoir Générale de Photographie. D: Georges Demenÿ. Original format 58 mm
Dancing Girl No. 2
FR 1896. P: Gaumont-Demenÿ, Comptoir Générale de Photographie. D: Georges Demenÿ. Original format 58 mm
Debarcadère du bateau à vapeur Wilhelm Tell
FR 1896. P: Gaumont-Demenÿ. D: Georges Demenÿ. Original format 58 mm
Dispute espagnole
FR 1896. P: Gaumont-Demenÿ, Comptoir Générale de Photographie. D: Georges Demenÿ. Original format 58 mm
[Halle au vin, No 1]
?FR ?GB 1897. PC: Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Original format 68 mm
[Halle au vin, No 2]
?FR ?GB 1897. PC: Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Original format 68 mm
[La Cachette]
?FR ?GB 1897. PC: Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Original format 68 mm
Bain de mer No. 1
GB 1898. Filmed on Biokam camera, 17,5 mm
Bain de mer No. 2
GB 1898. Filmed on Biokam camera, 17,5 mm
The Rival Clothiers
GB 1900. PC: Warwick. D: G. Aubrey Smith. Filmed on Biokam camera, 17,5 mm
[Trichrome Experimental Film]
GB 1903. PC: Jumeaux-Davidson. D: Benjamin Jumeaux, William Norman Lascelles Davidson. Original format 82 mm
[Posters on Hoarding]
GB 1912. PC: Friese-Greene-Lascelles-Davidson. D: William Friese-Greene
Engineer's Shop at Nelson Dock
GB 1896. ?Robert William Paul?. 15 m
Westminster
GB 1896. Robert William Paul. 13 m
Blackfriars Bridge
GB 1896. Robert William Paul. 15 m
Troops Passing Over Mooder River
GB 1899. PC: Warwick. D: John Bennett-Stanford. 20 m
Children Paddling
GB 1896. D: Esme Collings. 20 m
Arrival of Train-Load of Visitors at Henley Station
GB 1899. PC: Hepworth Manufacturing Company. D: Cecil Hepworth. 12 m

This group includes the greatest treasures of the Will Day film collection. The fragments of the films made by William Friese-Greene with his cameras of 1889 and 1890 probably represent the world's first films on celluloid and certainly the first perforated films and the first films shot on out-side locations. In addition there are fine groups of large-format films made by Georges Demenÿ and by the Mutoscope and Biograph Company in 1896-1897, and small-format films shot with the Bio-kam, the earliest home movie device. Also natural colour films made by the 1903 Jumeaux-Lascelles Davidson Trichrome process in 1903, and by the William Friese-Greene and Norman Lascelles Davidson process in 1912; and finally a group of hitherto unknown films from the first days of British cinema, shot by Robert William Paul, Esme Collings, Cecil Hepworth, and the Warwick Company. (David Robinson, Pordenone 1997)

Revisited: the most precious of the Will Day programmes... at least some of the films have been digitally restored, and they look like it, but still it's one of the most marvellous film historical presentations, with excellent editing and introduction work.

Points de vue sur le monde à travers la Collection Will Day

The World Seen Through the Will Day Collection / Maailman kuvia Will Dayn kokoelmassa

1897-1913. Compilation: FR 1997. Archives Françaises du Film / Centre National de la Cinématographie. 35 mm, 587 m /20 fps/ 23 min. Titres français / English titles
Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 3 Oct 2009 (History of the Cinema / AFF 40th Anniversary)

The Prince of Wales on the Deck of the "Britannia" on the Riviera
GB 1897. D: John Tester. 16 m
Queen Victoria's State Visit to Ireland
GB 1900. 38 m
Panoramic Views on the Thames. - Panoramic Views of the Paris Exhibition
GB 1900. Cecil Hepworth. 25 m
London Prepared to Make the Coronation of Edward VII a Wonderful Spectacle
GB 1901 or 1902. 25 m
Edward VII's Delhi Durbar
GB 1902. 33 m
Memorial to Indian Prince at Bexhill
GB 1910. PC: Gaumont Graphic. 24 m
St. Martin-De-Ré. A Convoy of Convicts Departs for a French Penal Settlement.
GB 1912. PC: Pathé's Animated Gazette. 25 m
The War of the Five Nations
GB 1912. PC: Pathé's Animated Gazette. 33 m
State Visit of Their Majesties to Berlin for the Wedding of the Kaiser's Daughter
GB 1910. PC: Gaumont Graphic and others. 78 m
French Train Disaster at Melun
GB 1913. PC: Gaumont Graphic. 27 m
London Wants a Dreadnought. The Great Demonstration in Trafalgar Square
GB 1913. PC: Gaumont Graphic. 22 m
A Trip to the White Sea Fisheries
GB 1909. PC: Rosie Films. 228 m

Will Day (1873-1936) was not only the world's first and greatest collector pertaining to archaeology and beginnings of cinema, but also a pioneer collector of actual films. His collection, in 1997 restored by Archives Françaises du Film / Centre National de la Cinématographie, is seen publicly for the first time at Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto. This selection from the film collection of Will Day consists of a group of early actuality films beginning with John Tester's 1897 film of the Prince of Wales on the Royal Yacht, a 1900 montage of Queen Victoria's state visit to Dublin and Cecil Hepworth's impressive panoramas of the Thames and the Paris International Exhibition. Later films include Joseph Rosenthal's visually handsome record of A Trip to the White Sea Fisheries. (David Robinson, Pordenone 1997)

Revisited the Will Day collection of actuality films revealing the past as a foreign country. The films have been professionally edited with introductory titles.

Autour de Will Day

About Will Day / Will Day ja elokuvan kehitys
1914-1924. Compilation: FR 1997. Archives Françaises du Film / Centre National de la Cinématographie. 35 mm, 603 m /20 fps/ 25 min. Titres français / English titles
Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 3 Nov 2009 (History of the Cinema and AFF 40th Anniversary)

The Evolution of Film
GB 1924. PC: Pathé Pictorial. With: Will Day. 226 m
The Inventor of Kinematography
GB 1921. PC: Gaumont Graphic. 69 m
Whitewashing the Ceiling (extract)
GB 1914. P: Will Day. D: Joe Rosenthal. SC: Will Evans. Cast: Will Evans, Arthur Conquest
[Will Day With His Family and Pets]
[Will Day Outside His Shop at 19 Lisle Street, London W]
GB ?1914. 29 m
In a 10-minute Pathé Pictorial of the early twenties, Will Day shows off some prize items from his collection, with the cameraman achieving remarkable success in animating some of the archaic moving picture devices. Day is also seen as a bearer at the impressive 1921 funeral of his hero Wil-liam Friese-Greene; and in home movies, with his family, ca 1910, and outside his shop. Also Day's first effort as a film producer, the knockabout farce Whitewashing a Ceiling. (David Robinson, Pordenone 1997)

Revisited the wonderfully edited programme with pre-cinema treasures from the Will Day collection edited with good introduction titles.

Is

Jäätä / Das Eis. TVM. SE / DE / FI 1972. PC: YLE, Sveriges Radio TV2, NDR – Norddeutscher Rundfunk. P: Leif Käll. PC: Conny Jydin. D: Åke Lindman. SC: Clas Engström based on his novel (1961). DP: Kimmo Simula, Gunnar Fischer - colour. Production manager: Tuula Sid. AD: Aimo Pöyhönen. ED: Pipsa Valavaara. S: Veijo Lehti. CAST: Stephan Schwartz, Tord Pettersson (Valter), Roland Hedlund (Vilhelm), Tommy Jonsson (Karl), Eddie Axberg (Anders), Ulf Gotenstam (Martin), Stephan Gotenstam (Johannes), Ulla Blomstrand (Alma), Marianne Johansson (Karin). 110 min. In Swedish, with some German, with Finnish subtitles by Risto Säämänen. Digibeta from YLE viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 28 Oct 2009.

A stark and authentic account on mail transport on the Baltic Sea in the winter. A period film that takes place in January 1830. The winter was exceptionally hard around Gotland.

Six men transport the mail with a boat that they mostly need to haul across the ice, but they need it to cross the water when there is open sea. Two of the youngest perish, and the four survivors fight the hunger, the cold, and the wind, and they start to hallucinate.

The film gets stronger towards the end. The youngest survivor accuses the others for framing his father for a theft of nets. At the point of exhaustion they see the shore but slowly they realize that they returned to where they started. Valter stays with the mail while the others bring help. The last image is an extreme close-up of Valter's face, with a wood brick between his teeth, as his frozen leg gets amputated with a saw.

There are memory flashbacks of summer and women, including Valter's wife, who warns her husband of taking the assignment of winter mail delivery. The imagery is stark, with Gunnar Fischer, the cinematographer of Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal. There is variety in the colour scale: the blend of orange, red, and yellow on sunny days - the blue shadows - the grayness of certain days - and the black nights.

The Shanghai Gesture

Uhkapeliä Shanghaissa / Hasard i Shanghai.US © 1941 Arnold Productions, Inc. Presenter: Arnold Pressburger; Associate P: Albert de Courville; Theo. W. Baumfeld; D: Josef von Sternberg; SC: Josef von Sternberg - collaborators: Geza Herczeg; Jules Furthman; [Kurt Vollmoeller] - based on the play The Shanghai Gesture by John Colton (New York, 1926). DP: Paul Ivano; AD: Boris Leven; ED: Sam Winston; [Interior Decorations Howard Bristol]; [Mural in Mother Gin Sling's apartment Keye Luke]; COST for Miss Munson Royer; for Miss Tierney Oleg Cassini; [Costume jewelry: Joseff]; M: Richard Hageman; S: C. A. Noyes; Wigs for Miss Munson Hazel Rodgers; Makeup Bob Stephanoff;
CAST: Gene Tierney ([Victoria Charteris, aka] Poppy Smith), Walter Huston (Sir Guy Charteris / "Mr. Dawson"), Victor Mature (Doctor Omar), Ona Munson ("Mother" Gin Sling), Phyllis Brooks (The Chorus Girl [Dixie Pomeroy]), Albert Bassermann (The Commissioner), Maria Ouspenskaya (The amah), Eric Blore (The bookkeeper [Caesar Hawkins]), Ivan Lebedeff (The gambler), Mike Mazurki (The coolie), Clyde Fillmore (The comprador), Grayce Hampton (The social leader), Rex Evans (The counselor), Mikhail Rasumni (The appraiser), Michael Delmatoff (The bartender), Marcel Dalio (The master of the spinning wheel). 99 min. A Stadkino Basel print mit deutschen Untertiteln. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 14 Oct 2009. - For the first time I saw the complete version of the film. However, the visual quality is highly variable, with a soft, duped quality, as if it were a dupe from a nitrate print which has started to degrade. - Revisited: a personal work by Sternberg after a series of assignments. - The setting is an immense casino, and the story climaxes during the Chinese New Year with a surprising settling of accounts at "Mother" Gin Sling's lavish dinner. Gin Sling knows the dark past of everybody. - The poet Omar recites verses from the Rubayat. - A vision of desolation, "cards, my fellow pilgrims", "the tower of Babel", the hall which "smells so incredibly evil", with dialogue lines such as "I have no country". - The teasing story ends with devastating tragedy: the daughter (the opium addict played by Gene Tierney) denies her mother (the brothel madam Gin Sling), who shoots her in cold blood.

Poika ja ilves

Tommy och lodjuret / Tommy and the Wildcat. FI 1998. PC: Wildcat Production Oy. P: Hannu Tuomainen. D: Raimo O Niemi, Ville Suhonen. SC: Ville Suhonen, Martin Daniel. DP: Kari Sohlberg. M: Søren Hyldgaard, Thomas Lester, Hans Sorensen. ED: Pertti Hilkamo. ED: Jukka Nykänen. S: Kristian Eidness Andersen. CAST: Konsta Hietanen (Tomi), Risto Tuorila (uncle Jouko), Jarmo Mäkinen (Haapala), Antti Virmavirta (Tomi's father Olli), Kristiina Halttu (Helena), Rauno Ahonen (Jaska), Jussi Puhakka (Oula), Markku Huhtamo (Kalle Pokka), Mikko Kivinen (director of the zoo), Aarno Sulkanen (the sheriff), Tero Jartti (a younger reindeer farmer), Ville Myllyrinne (policeman), Katariina Kaitue (Tomi's mother), the wildcat Väinö (the wildcat Leevi). 102 min. A vintage print viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 14 Oct 2009. - A print with good colour and a good definition of light. - Revisited the start of a popular family film. I watched it mainly to check how good photochemical film looked in Finland just ten years ago.

Tukkijoella tapahtuu

Jag är timmerflottare / [It Happened On Log River]. FI 1950. PC: Felix-Filmi. D: Brita Wrede, Felix Forsman. DP: Felix Forsman. Assistant cameraman: Henning Carlsen. M: selections from Jean Sibelius. ED: Armas Vallasvuo. CAST: Kullervo Kalske (foreman Salonen), Leo Mikander (Paavo Härmä). 35 min. A 16mm KAVA print. 37 min. - Epic dimensions in a short story of a 14 year old boy born by a log river. His home burned in the war, an orphan, evacuated, alone in the city of Kotka, harassed by other children, he escapes to the deep forests of the north, wanted by the police. He sees the rapids, the bear cubs, the reindeer. - The lumberjack canteen's hostess sees him about to steal milk. The boy stays at the camp as a lumberjack. - In Kotka, the boys play dangerous games at the woodprocessing factory, even on the rooftop. They jump to the water.