TJ28 / 28 Days Left

 

Yasmin Najjar: TJ28 / 28 Days Left (FI 2026). Featuring Yasmin Najjar.

FI 2026. PC: Aalto University, ELO Film School • P: Meri-Tuuli Varis • D: Yasmin Najjar • SC: Kasperi Riihimäki • DP: Nadia Farghaly • ED: Julia Matinniemi • PD: Sonia Gran • Cost: Satu Muurinen, Iiris Jämsén • S: Laura Torkkola • M: Laura Torkkola • C: Yasmin Najjar, Okko Alanne, Sherwan Haji, Mohamed El-Waber, Leevi Pellas • Copy from: Aalto University, ELO Film School • DCP • in Finnish and Arabic • subtitles in English • 24 min

    Sodankylän Elokuvajuhlat / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) 2026: Kotimaisia lyhytelokuvaensi-iltoja 2

    Viewed at Iso Teltta, 10 June 2026

Liina Härkönen (MSFF 2026): "Sodankylän elokuvajuhlilla on usein ollut ilo esittää Cannesin toukokuisten elokuvajuhlien Suomi-edustusta tuoreeltaan valkokankaalta. Niin nytkin, kun saamme nähtäville Yasmin Najjarin ohjaaman ja tähdittämän, militarismia ja diasporaa osuvasti peilaavan lyhytdraaman TJ28, joka valittiin tuhansien tarjokkaiden joukosta Cannesin La Cinef -sarjaan."

"Ohjaajan omiin armeijakokemuksiin perustuvassa elokuvassa Amani (Najjar) on vapaaehtoisen palvelusaikansa loppusuoralla saadessaan huolestuttavia uutisia isoisänsä kotiseudulta Gazasta. Amani yrittää keskittyä käsillä olevaan tehtävään, mutta armeijatoverien paikoin huoleton suhtautuminen taisteluharjoituksiin ja kanssaelollisiin kirpaisee pakostakin eri tavalla, kun läheinen on kaukana pahimman keskellä."

"Ohjaajan omat lapsuusajan kotivideot yhdistettynä Nadia Farghalyn upeaan metsäkuvaukseen tuovat asian kipeän ytimen lähelle vailla turhaa herutusta. Kun Aallosta tulee Suomen elokuva-alalle tällaisia maistereita, niin on synti ja häpeä, jos rahoitusta ei löydy." Liina Härkönen

Liina Härkönen (MSFF 2026): "Midnight Sun Film Festival has often had the pleasure of freshly presenting Finland’s representatives at the Cannes Film Festival on our silver screen. This is also the case now, as we get to see the short drama 28 Days Left, directed by and starring Yasmin Najjar. This poignant reflection of militarism and diaspora was selected to Cannes’ La Cinef competition out of thousands of submissions."

"Based on the director’s own experiences in the Finnish army, Amani (Najjar) is nearing the end of her voluntary service, when she receives worrying news about her grandfather in Gaza. Amani keeps trying to focus on the task at hand, but the mainly cavalier attitudes of her squad mates towards combat exercise and other living beings hit home differently when a loved one is far away facing the worst."

"The director’s own childhood home videos combined with Nadia Farghaly’s stunning forest cinematography bring the painful point home without unnecessary pathos. When the Aalto University’s Department of Film is providing such fresh talent to our film industry, it is a crying shame if we can’t get them funding."

AA: I saw Yasmin Najjar's 28 Days Left in the Aalto ELO Film School Spring Show 2026 Program II and was impressed. On second viewing, it is even more impressive.

The defense of Finland is based on national military service for all adult males. Service can be military or civilian. For females, service is voluntary.

TJ is military slang, meaning "tännehän jäätte" / "here you will remain". TJ28 means "28 days left". Thus we are in the final instruction period of the conscripts. In the middle of the final combat exercise.

Najjar's movie is a study in tensions, conveying a meaningful experience in "the fog of war". Night has fallen. Infrared devices are in use. There is confusion because an unidentified creature is glimpsed in the shooting range. The exercise is interrupted. Indeed, in the morning it turns out that a deer has become a casualty. 

The exercise is of a supposedly disciplined unit, but everyone is still just an undisciplined individual. Some don't take war games seriously and refuse to fully join the play. Yet the issues are serious. Live ammunition is a matter of life and death. A deer is killed, and the casualty could have been a human.

The conscripts are taking early steps in learning responsibility. Some are learning callousness, even imitating the notorious Abu Ghraib selfie pose with the carcass of the deer. The most conscientious soldier is bullied and harassed, even brutalized.

I feel alienated from the dialogue, with its mongrel "English" hodgepodge. I know that some young people now speak such a language which sounds in my ears like a poor parody.

Mobile devices are ubiquitous during the combat exercise. I understand the epochal turn in digital warfare in Ukraine, where a smaller nation has achieved a formidable might in resistance against the brutal bigger bully with an ingenious use of unmanned armed vehicles.

But here mobile devices seem to be for entertainment. On the battlefield one would expect 100% focus on the situation on the ground instead of drifting to virtual worlds of the internet.

Military life has changed a lot in a generation. Finland by now is multicultural, and women are becoming equal. The technology is very different.

The protagonist is a Finnish-Palestinian woman, completing her voluntary military service in the medical corps. During the exercise she has to deal with explosive tensions in her unit. That same night she learns that her beloved grandfather has been killed in a missile strike into a hospital in Gaza. She keeps calm until she cannot help bursting into tears.