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| Hanna Bergholm: Yön lapsi (FI/FR/GB/LV 2026). Seidi Haarla, Rupert Grint. |
Finnish Gala: Nightborn
HIFF 2026: "A couple (Seidi Haarla and Rupert Grint) move deep into the forest and have the child they’ve always dreamed of. The film, which premiered at Berlinale, explores the dark side of a mother’s love."
Director: Hanna Bergholm
Starring: Rupert Grint, Seidi Haarla, Pamela Tola, Pirkko Saisio
Country: Finland, France, United Kingdom, Lithuania
Languages: Finnish, English
Subtitles: partly English n.c.
Duration: 92 min
Theme: Gala Films
Keywords: Horror, Female stories, Family ties, Thriller, Weird, Festival hit
Distributor: SF Studios
Loc: Lithuania
Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) 2026
In person: Hanna Bergholm, Seidi Haarla, Ilja Rautsi, Eicca Toppinen. Hosted by Kalle Kinnunen. In English only. No Finnish, no Swedish.
Viewed at Bio Rex, Helsinki, 23 Sep 2026
Juho Lipponen (HIFF 2026): "Nightborn, selected for the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival, is further evidence of the new international appeal of Finnish cinema. The film was among the contenders for the Golden Bear in the festival’s most prestigious section, the Competition. Only two other Finnish films have received the same distinction this millennium: Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope (R&A 2017) and Petri Kotwica’s Black Ice (R&A 2007)."
"Finnish Saga (Seidi Haarla) and British Jon (Rupert Grint) move to Finland, settling in a ramshackle house in the middle of the forest. The couple dream of starting a family, and their wish comes true once they have escaped into the embrace of nature. But Saga sees something in her child that no one else can see: the baby seems to have a taste for blood and flesh. Is Saga right, or has she been driven mad by isolation?"
"Drawing on Finnish nature mythology, this psychological family thriller sees director Hanna Bergholm return to themes familiar from her debut feature Hatching, exploring family life in contemporary society. When idyllic visions of family life are put to the test, viewers are invited to reflect on parenthood and its challenges. The Finns’ supposedly distinctive relationship with nature also comes under critical scrutiny. What happens when a seemingly safe environment turns into a source of torment?" Juho Lipponen (translated by Mira Liimatainen)
Juho Lipponen (HIFF 2026): "Pariskunta (Seidi Haarla ja Rupert Grint) muuttaa metsän keskelle ja saa haaveilemansa lapsen. Berliinin elokuvajuhlien pääsarjassa maailman ensi-iltansa saanut elokuva vie äidinrakkauden pimeälle puolelle."
"Berliinin maineikkaille elokuvajuhlille päässyt Yön lapsi todistaa suomalaisen elokuvan uuden kansainvälisen vetovoiman. Elokuva kilpaili festivaalin kaikkein arvostetuimmassa osiossa eli pääsarjassa Kultaisesta karhusta. Tällä vuosituhannella samaan on toistaiseksi pystynyt vain kaksi muuta suomalaiselokuvaa, jotka ovat Aki Kaurismäen Toivon tuolla puolen (R&A 2017) ja Petri Kotwican Musta jää (R&A 2007)."
"Suomalainen Saga (Seidi Haarla) ja brittiläinen Jon (Rupert Grint) muuttavat Suomeen talonröttelöön keskelle metsää. Pariskunta haaveilee perheenlisäyksestä, joka tapahtuu heidän päästyään luonnon helmaan. Saga näkee lapsessaan kuitenkin jotain, mitä muut eivät näe. Tällä tuntuu olevan halu vereen ja lihaan. Onko Saga oikeassa, vai onko mökkihöperyys vallannut hänet?"
"Suomalaisesta luontomytologiasta ammentavassa psykologisessa perhejännärissä ohjaaja Hanna Bergholm tarttuu esikoiselokuvastaan Pahanhautojasta tuttuihin teemoihin perhe-elämästä nyky-yhteiskunnassa. Kun idylliset perhekuviot joutuvat koetukselle, katsoja ohjataan pohtimaan kysymyksiä vanhemmuudesta ja sen haasteista. Myös suomalaisten erityiseksi mielletty luontosuhde päätyy kriittisen tarkkailun kohteeksi. Mitä tapahtuu, kun turvallinen miljöö kääntyykin piinaavaksi?" Juho Lipponen
AA: The director Hanna Bergholm and the screenwriter Ilja Rautsi collaborate again in Yön lapsi / Nightborn, as they did in their previous horror movie, Pahanhautoja / Hatching (2022), the director's debut feature.
"Yön lapsi" means literally "child of the night", with associations to Dracula: "Listen to them: children of the night! What music they make".
Bergholm and Rautsi share an authentic talent in horror. They have an assured touch as they navigate in preposterous nightmare situations, unafraid to follow outlandish premises to extreme conclusions. They remove us from our comfort zone and shove us to a shock terrain.
A home is no longer home. A baby turns from an object of love to an object of terror. Forest, a safe haven for a Finn, becomes a death trap. The sweet, desirable breast flowing with milk gets mutilated and stained with blood.
The birth of a baby is a promise of hope of the future. Here, it is a warning signal, a menace of destruction.
Monster child films have been with us since the 1960s. Rosemary's Baby started the trend. Relevant was also The Exorcist, with a 12-year old "monster teenager" girl. In The Omen cycle (six films by now) the monster child turned out to be the Antichrist. David Cronenberg (The Brood) and Larry Cohen (It's Alive with sequels) contributed memorably.
The psychology of baby / child monster movies is unsettling, because the very presence of a baby (or a child) triggers in us an instinctive Kindchenschema (baby schema) reaction that turns us into protectors and insulates us from the insufferable aspects of having a baby such as endless crying and other growing pains.
Bergholm & Rautsi know their tradition well and use their knowledge to avoid copying others and focus on something fresh and original. The main special emphasis is that Yön lapsi is nature-bound. It takes place in a forest in a dilapidated house. The motif of the monster baby is combined with a "revenge of the nature" motif. It all has a character of a "return of the repressed" which at the first viewing remains unprocessed.
The film is well made. There is a visceral quality. The naturalism of giving birth and living with a baby is unflinching. The gore and the splatter grow from a natural ground but is taken to extreme, even ridiculous lengths. Blood spurts profusely. The story is not played for laughs, but a sense of humour is not lost.
The dream work of nightmares can take place by Verschiebung, Verdrängung and Verdichtung. Their meanings ultimately depend on the context.
I was thinking about the global collapse of the birthrate, due to the degeneration of sperm quality (probably from radiation from mobile devices) and people no longer being interested in real sex anyhow (displaced into cybersex). And by now, people are mostly interested in taking selfies.
Yön lapsi can be seen as the ultimate horror story of having a baby, destroying family happiness and becoming a threat to humanity. In the twisted language of the nightmare it turns a dark mirror image of ourselves. We are the children of the night.
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