Tampere Film Festival: National Competition 9

Helsinki Mansplaining Massacre.

Tampere Film Festival (TFF): National Competition 9
8.3. FRI/PE 18:30 | PLEVNA 2
Language/kieli: Eng, Fin | Duration/kesto: 91min

HELSINKI MANSPLAINING MASSACRE
Ilja Rautsi | Finland 2018 | Fiction | 15 min
    TFF: "An intensely hysterical horror comedy about one woman’s desperate struggle to survive a horde of men with frail egos, who just want to explain everything to her. But the biggest horror may be closer to her than she thinks."
    "Intensiivisen hysteerisessä kauhukomediassa Essi yrittää selviytyä hauraiden egojen ajamasta mieslaumasta, joka haluaa selittää hänelle kaiken. Mutta todellinen kauhu saattaa vaania lähempänä kuin Essi luuleekaan." (TFF)
    AA: Ilja Rautsi's horror film taps into a genuine oneiric current. In dream mode he lambasts conventional gender roles. The nightmare touch is assured and startling.

Keuliminen / Ride of Passage.

KEULIMINEN
RIDE OF PASSAGE
Katri Myllyniemi, Vilja Autiokyrö | Finland 2019 | Documentary | 7 min
    TFF: "In secret, on the outskirts of the city, hundreds of teenage boys gather and show off on their mopeds and motocross bikes. The summer night is filled with the noise and smoke of straining motors, all against a dark, silent backdrop of looming pines. All you need to belong is a two-wheeler of your own. The riders are just a step away from adulthood. They are living their last moments of freedom, the future already in sight. These secret moped meeting gatherings are popular and widespread throughout Finland, organised and spread through social media."
    "Sadat teini-ikäiset pojat mopoineen ja motocross-pyörineen kokoontuvat salaiseen paikkaan kaupungin laidalle. Kesäyön täyttää pyöristä lähtevä melu. Rataa kiertävien, savuttavien ajopelien takana kuuset seisovat ylväinä. Jos käytössäsi on kaksipyöräinen kulkuvälinen, muuta ei tarvita. Pojat ovat aivan aikuisuuden kynnyksellä ja elävät viimeisiä vapauden hetkiään, mutta tulevaisuus siintää jo heidän edessään." (TFF)
    AA: A factual record of the outlandish rituals of round-the-clock motocross rides. Totally insane, and totally absorbing.

Eläinsilta U-3033 / Animal Bridge U-3033

ELÄINSILTA U-3033
ANIMAL BRIDGE U-3033
Milja Viita | Finland 2018 | Experimental, Documentary | 13 min
    TFF: "Animal Bridge U-3033 is about the parallel realities of humans and wild animals. It’s filmed during a year on a bridge above motor highway. These bridges are architecturally engrossing structures, addressed only to the nature, allowing animals to cross the highway."
    "Eläinsilta U-3033 on kertomus ihmisten ja villieläinten rinnakkaistodellisuuksista. Elokuva on kuvattu moottoritien ylittävällä sillalla. Nämä rakennelmat on tarkoitettu eläinten käyttöön, jotta ne voivat kulkea teiden yli." (TFF)
    AA: Shot with infrared surveillance cameras, a huge amount of footage was edited into a nocturnal vision of the parallel reality of animals crossing a custom-built bridge over the highway. A phantom world is full of life next to us while we are asleep.

Syötäväksi syntynyt / Born to Be Eaten.

SYÖTÄVÄKSI SYNTYNYT
BORN TO BE EATEN
Kati Laukkanen | Finland 2018 | Documentary | 11 min
    TFF: "A symphonic portrait of the five week life of a broiler chicken."
    "Tällainen on tehotuotetun broilerin viiden viikon elämä." (TFF)
    AA: We know the story, and everytime it is shocking to hear. Hundreds of thousands of chicken exist only in as industrial material to be processed as food. Every scene is an argument for vegetarianism.

Sakke

SAKKE
Anssi Kasitonni | Finland 2018 | Experimental, Fiction | 9 min
    TFF: "Sakke is a Finnish snowboarder who is going to make a movie with his buddy. Sakke is also the world´s first radio controlled snowboarder."
    "Sakke on suomalainen lumilautailija, joka aikoo tehdä kaverinsa kanssa elokuvan. Sakke on myös maailman ensimmäinen radio-ohjattava lumilautailija." (TFF)
    AA: A music video based on a radio controlled puppet. While Sakke may seem an animation, it is not: it is a live puppet movie! ♪ Anssi Kasitonni: "Luurankojengi". ♪ Anssi Kasitonni: "Laskettelubiisi".

Tuhkaksi / Ashes to Ashes

TUHKAKSI
ASHES TO ASHES
Tuuli Teelahti | Finland 2018 | Documentary | 6 min
    TFF: "When a body is cremated, all that remains, is some nails from the coffin. And that’s that."
    "Kun ruumis tuhkataan, jäljelle jää lähinnä nauloja arkusta. Että semmosta." (TFF)
    AA: Not facts of life but facts of death: lessons in cremating.

En arg mors bekännelser / Confessions of an Angry Mother

EN ARG MORS BEKÄNNELSER
CONFESSIONS OF AN ANGRY MOTHER
VIHAISEN ÄIDIN TUNNUSTUKSIA
Catarina Diehl | Finland 2018 | Animation | 6 min
    TFF: "She’s afraid of three things: losing her temper, hurting her own kids and turning into her own abusive and violent mother."
    "Hän pelkää kolmea asiaa: hermojensa menetystä, omien lastensa satuttamista ja muuttumista samanlaiseksi kuin hänen oma kaltoinkohteleva ja väkivaltainen äitinsä oli." (TFF)
    AA: First person confessions in Swedish, a stream of consciousness of a mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Conveyed in a mixed animation style, with freeze frames.

AWARENESS
Arttu Nieminen | Finland 2019 | Experimental, Fiction | 4 min
    TFF: "Neurocinematic dive into surreal prophecy, where awareness of mankind reaches to the heavens."
    "Neuroelokuva sukeltaa mentaaliseen tykkylumikudokseen, näkyyn missä ihmiskunnan tietoisuus kurottaa korkeuksiin." (TFF)
    AA: Experimental music video: "Come Let Us" with lyrics from the Bible: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” The image is horizontally doubled: above we see the mirror image. Tykkylumi (heavy snow) is a central image.

Kaksi ruumista rannalla / Two Bodies on a Beach. Laura Birn.

KAKSI RUUMISTA RANNALLA
TWO BODIES ON A BEACH
Anna Paavilainen | Finland 2019 | Fiction | 20 min
    TFF: "A WOMAN wakes up on a beach tied in a plastic press wearing only underwear and high heels. “Not again”, she sighs and decides to track down the enemy and strike back. She gets a companion from AN OLDER WOMAN, who has been pushed to the borders of society.  During their journey through classical cinematic landscapes these nameless women from different generations struggle to connect and understand each other’s perspectives while their passion for men and male attention gets in away."
    "Nainen herää rannalta muoviin käärittynä puolialastomana korkokengissä. “Ei taas”, hän huokaa, ja päättää löytää syyllisen. Nainen saa houkuteltua mukaansa kostoretkelleen maailmanlaidalle sysätyn vanhemman naisen. Kulkiessaan läpi klassisten elokuvallisten maisemien nämä nimettömät naiset joutuvat kohtaamaan omat himonsa, sukupolvien ristiriidat ja idealisminsa haurauden." (TFF)
    AA: A hallucinatory odyssey of two women lost in the world of chauvinistic entertainment clichés. Impressively shot in scope. ♪ Sirpaleprinsessa.

***

The show started and ended with parodies of conventional macho film fantasies, linked by the contribution of Anna Paavilainen, star of Helsinki Mansplaining Massacre and director of Two Bodies on a Beach.

This is the time for such spoofs, but as vehicles for women's cinema they are trapped by negation to macho genre clichés.

The male look and the female look: for us human beings the common ground is bigger than the territory that is different and individual differences are bigger than gender differences, not forgetting that there are more genders than two. Having said this I think that there are strengths that are more typical for women than men: intuition, sensitivity, emotional intelligence, a taste for beauty, language, discussion, communication, tenderness, and caring. I don't forget that Socrates in Symposium confessed having learned everything from Diotima, including the greatest lesson: the wisdom of love. And the insight that the road to wisdom is via dialogue.

Men have a talent in death, women have a talent in life. In these parodies women are lost in Death Valley, and genuinely feminine strengths are absent.