Images of War in France and Finland

A seminar at Cinema Orion, Helsinki. Moderated by Jari Sedergren.

ERIC LE ROY (AFF/CNC) talked about the preservation of WWII movies in France. Until the 1990s Vichy movies were preserved but shelved, and first then they have been shown again. AFF/CNC has also compiled a filmography of these films. The first foreign presentation was at Bologna's Il Cinema Ritrovato last year, and Helsinki is the second place abroad. The Vichy control was more relaxed than the German occupation control. The Vichy films were paeans to nature, youth, and sport in the spirit of the New Order.

HENRIK MEINANDER and JARI SEDERGREN spoke about the images of WWII in Finland. Meinander stated that moralistic melodramas such as Äideistä parhain / The Best of Mothers have become possible first in recent times. He was skeptical about the possibilities of the Mannerheim biopic, since Mannerheim may be an almost impossible subject. Jari Sedergren commented on the new aspects of history revealed by the wartime propaganda films that have recently been released on dvd in extenso.