D. W. Griffith: Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) 2020 digital restoration Film Preservation Society

D. W. Griffith: Mr. Jones at the Ball (US 1908).

MR. JONES AT THE BALL (US 1908) dir: D. W. Griffith. story: ?. photog: G. W. Bitzer. cast: John C. Cumpson, Florence Lawrence, Harry Solter, Mack Sennett, Arthur Johnson, George Gebhardt, Charles Inslee, Jeannie MacPherson. prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. filmed: 23/24.09.1908 (NY Studio). rel: 25.12.1908. copy: DCP, 8'37" (from paper print, 503 ft., 15 fps); titles: ENG. source: Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles (DCP); Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA (paper print). Digital restoration, scanning: 2022. Intertitles written by Film Preservation Society. 

     Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone 2026: The Biograph Project.

    Grand piano: Philip Carli.

    Viewed at Teatro Verdi, 3 Oct 2026

Tracey Goessel (GCM 2026): "Here we have the first official “Jones” comedy: a single joke gag built around split trousers and the antics that ensue at a dress ball. The story itself is scarcely worthy of comment. But, as always, small pleasures can be found. Look for the hint of a secret affair between a guest and the welcoming hostess. Wince at the man in blackface acting the part of coat-check clerk – is his wig the same one used by Alfred Paget four years later in A Beast at Bay? Look out the window next to Mack Sennett’s footman in the ballroom – is that not the same painted flat from A Smoked Husband? And isn’t it Mack we see, both as footman and, in the final shot, policeman? If it is cinematic artistry you seek, you will not find it here. But you will find a wealth of small details that will bring you back to a late autumn day in 1908. Even in this minor charmer, it is a journey worth taking."

AA: One might call Mr. Jones at the Ball a case of the "slight narrative". Out of almost nothing, Griffith creates a wild choreography of slapstick action. It is almost breathlessly fast, and the choreography is always assured when the characters criss-cross at an amazing speed. Bear and ice-bear rugs are an amusing element as later in Chaplin's comedy shorts. Mack Sennett who appears among the cast may have been inspired.

D. W. Griffith: One Touch of Nature (1908) 2026 digital restoration Film Preservation Society

ONE TOUCH OF NATURE (US 1909) dir: D. W. Griffith. story: ? photog: Arthur Marvin, G. W. Bitzer. cast: Arthur Johnson, Florence Lawrence, Marion Leonard, Charles Inslee, Mack Sennett, Harry Solter, George Gebhart, Gertrude Robinson, Jeannie MacPherson, Dorothy West. prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. filmed: 13-18.11.1908 (NY Studio). rel: 1.1.1909. copy: DCP, 12'18" (from paper print, 724 ft., 16 fps); titles: ENG. source: Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles (DCP); Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA (paper print). Digital restoration, scanning: 2026. Intertitles written by Film Preservation Society

    Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone 2026: The Biograph Project.

    Grand piano: Philip Carli.

    Viewed at Teatro Verdi, 3 Oct 2026

Tracey Goessel (GCM 2026): "Here is an improbable melodrama, encompassing the death of one child, the catatonic state of her mourning mother, and the mother’s restoration with the rescue of a battered orphan. While Griffith cross-cuts effectively we should also acknowledge his staging of the street sequences. "

"The first such scene includes a family playing ring-around-the-rosy; a drunk falling on his backside; our evil hag and hapless orphan; multiple bowler-hatted pedestrians; and a trotting newsboy. The subsequent shot has its own micro-dramas. Russell Merritt (The Griffith Project, Vol. 1) writes, “Griffith sets the scene by having three chorus girls dropped off by escorts at the stage door. Each departure, quick though it is, is made distinctive: the first woman gives her man a warm goodbye kiss, the second couple is merely polite, the third positively surly.” What his view of the smeary paper print did not provide was the recognition of the third chorus girl. Under a heavy veil, we see Florence Lawrence serving as an extra, in addition to the female lead. It is, perhaps, a measure of how the industry had yet to acknowledge how recognizable these faces would become. The star system was not yet born. But we are up to 1909. And Mary Pickford was coming soon."

AA: Made in the tradition of the Sunday school play, proceeding in tableaux, reduced to the essentials, contrasting a happy family and a miserable family, both with a child. The child of the happy family dies, and the child of the doomed family is in danger, as well, but in a last minute rescue she is adopted to the happy one. Plausibility is not pursued, but room to powerful visions is opened. The mother's mental breakdown when her daughter dies. The unflinching account of the violence against the cursed family's daughter. Such scenes may be digested more easily within the melodramatic mode than in a realistic storyline. Again, a miracle happens: as soon as she receives a new daughter, the mother is cured and the girl is saved. Happiness is back. The film might be called a fairytale, just like The Christmas Burglars.

D. W. Griffith: The Christmas Burglars (1908) 2026 digital restoration Film Preservation Society

 

D. W. Griffith: The Christmas Burglars (US 1908). Florence Lawrence. Photo: Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles.

THE CHRISTMAS BURGLARS (US 1908) prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. dir: D. W. Griffith. story: ?. photog: G. W. Bitzer. cast: Florence Lawrence, Adele De Garde, George Gebhardt, Marion Leonard, Charles Inslee, Harry Solter, Mack Sennett, Arthur Johnson. filmed: 28,30.11.1908 (NY Studio, 8th Ave and 14th Street, NYC). rel: 22.12.1908. copy: DCP, 11'39" (from paper print, 679 ft., 15 fps); titles: ENG. source: Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles (DCP); Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA (paper print). Digital restoration, scanning: 2026. Intertitles written by Film Preservation Society 

    Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone 2026: The Biograph Project.

    Grand piano: Philip Carli.

    Viewed at Teatro Verdi, 3 Oct 2026

Tracey Goessel (GCM 2026): "If An Awful Moment is the nightmare before Christmas, The Christmas Burglars is an exercise in wish fulfillment. It has all the elements melodrama could require: a Christmas Eve setting; a starving widow and her daughter; a hard-hearted pawnshop owner; and a Runyonesque gallery of burglars and thieves. The discovery of a child’s plaintive letter to Santa prompts the store’s denizens to sneak into the tenement with food, gifts, and even a tree. Christmas by way of chloroform. On top of that, we get two city exteriors. What’s not to love? In terms of cinematic progression, Griffith takes the cut-to-what-the-character-is-thinking-about idea that he originated in After Many Years and does it one better. The final shot of the film includes a double exposure of the flinty-hearted pawnbroker, leaning on his counter in happy contemplation of his good deed. Instead of a direct cut to the scene of the celebration, and cutting back, Griffith and Bitzer staged a double exposure. The pawnshop image is shared by the tenement image, which then fades and leaves us back in the shop. Given that the double set of sprocket holes document that this effect was done in a contact printer and not in the camera itself, this feels like a Christmas gift to film historians everywhere."

AA: A Christmas Carol saga in the lineage of Charles Dickens. A formulaic plot gives room to genuine emotion. The little girl's sadness. The mother's desperation. The pawnbroker's shady business in collusion with burglars. Class society. The pawnbroker's change of heart on Christmas, like that of Ebenezer Scrooge. "A heart softened, never truly hard again". The miracle of Christmas. For some, there are no miracles. For others, everything is a miracle. I belong to the latter team. Another Griffith short that resembles a Sunday school play. With a powerful composition and mise-en-scène and certain fascinating images, such as the reflection of street life on a shop window.

D. W. Griffith: The Valet's Wife (1908) 2025 digital restoration Film Preservation Society

The Valet’s Wife (D. W. Griffith, US, 1908). Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles. Griffith can't help flaunting his racial insensitivity. A playboy wants to fool his rich benefactor uncle by presenting himself as a family man. The surprise to all is that "his baby", whisked from the orphan asylum for the occasion, is black.

THE VALET’S WIFE (US 1908). prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. dir: D. W. Griffith. sogg/story: ?. photog: Arthur Marvin, G. W. Bitzer. cast: Mack Sennett, Harry Solter, Robert Harron, George Gebhardt, Charles Avery, Florence Lawrence, Arthur Johnson. filmed: 10/11.09.1908 (NY Studio, /including exterior). rel: 01.12.1908. copy: DCP, 8'43" (from paper print, 508 ft., 16 fps); titles: ENG. source: Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles (DCP); Library of Congress, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA (paper print). Digital restoration, scanning: 2025. Intertitles written by Film Preservation Society.

    Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone 2026: The Biograph Project.

    Grand piano: Philip Carli.

    Viewed at Teatro Verdi, 3 Oct 2026

Tracey Goessel (GCM 2026): "This film hasn’t aged well. It is hard to view a comedy where the visual punchline is the purported infant of the protagonist turning out to be – wait for it – a negro! Even worse: the Biograph Bulletin narrates the punchline thus: “…one look was enough – ‘Great Jupiter, it’s a coon!’ ” Not that contemporary critics were any more fastidious with their language. The Moving Picture News (12.05.1908) wrote, “…the grinning face of a ‘pickaninny’ comes into view.” (The infant in question does not grin. It cries, as well it might, being born of color in America in 1908.) Curiously, Griffith telegraphs to the audience that the baby is black in an earlier shot – either an oversight, or an intentional buildup of audience suspense. The comedy has a few thin virtues. Griffith moves his characters around different settings (dining room, hallway, street) with competence. The narrative moves quickly – so quickly, it feels as if Bitzer was deliberately undercranking. (Production logs do not confirm this.) Finally, we have Bobby Harron in the bellhop uniform. Sometimes that is the only consolation we can seek."

AA: A vulgar farce, full of aggravating evidence for a case against D. W. Griffith the racist. However, there are more than one side to that case. Depressing to watch. A vivid sense of action and slapstick carries the farce. It is offensive but not boring. The plot is transnational: a rich relative funds the life of a wastrel in the belief that there is a family with children to support, or at least a promise of a marriage. There is even a Finnish variation, Erkki Karu's Runoilija muuttaa.

D. W. Griffith: Money Mad (1908) 2025 digital restoration Film Preservation Society

D. W. Griffith: Money Mad (US 1908). Harry Solter, George Gebhardt as two robbers. Griffith learns to master blocking and composition in depth. Photo: Film Preservation Society.

MONEY MAD (US 1908) prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. dir: D. W. Griffith. story: based on the short story by Jack London, “Just Meat” (The Cosmopolitan, 03.1907; retitled “Pals”, London Magazine, 04.1908). photog: G. W. Bitzer. cast: Harry Solter, Florence Lawrence, George Gebhardt, Arthur Johnson, Mack Sennett, Jeannie MacPherson. filmed: 28.10.1908, 02,16.11.1908 (NY Studio; undocumented location). rel: 04.12.1908. copy: DCP, 11'39" (from paper print, 684 ft., 15 fps); titles: ENG. source: Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles (DCP); Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA (paper print). Digital restoration, scanning: 2025. Intertitles written by Film Preservation Society

    Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone 2026: The Biograph Project.

    Grand piano: Philip Carli.

    Viewed at Teatro Verdi, 3 Oct 2026

Tracey Goessel (GCM 2026) "Money Mad is For Love of Gold on steroids. Griffith adds layers of Grand Guignol to the narrative of two crooks distrusting and killing each other. A little girl is throttled for her wallet. Our two thieves stalk the throttler through urban alleys (anticipating The Musketeers of Pig Alley), strangling him in his cellar and taking his gold. Once at their hovel, they manage to simultaneously stab and shoot each other. We do not stop there. Griffith has previously introduced the prerequisite drunken hag to the occasion, and she finds the bodies – and the gold. In her rapture, she knocks a lit candle off the table, and sets the place ablaze. The last we see of this scene is roiling smoke, heading straight for the audience. Money Mad was Griffith’s 40th release. For Love of Gold was his 9th. But this is misleading. It is more precise to state that a mere three months separated the filming dates of these two titles. Griffith absorbed much in that period – and there was much more to come."

THE PREVIOUS SCREENING: The Griffith Project 1 (1997) n:o 73. 16 mm from paper print, Library of Congress, intertitles missing, 264 ft /15 fps/ 11 min, piano: Edward von Past.

AA: A primitive, atavistic joy of storytelling carries Money Mad. The approach has affinities with school plays and Punch and Judy shows. Reduced to the essentials, Money Mad is sometimes almost abstract, devoid of nuance in psychology and character-building. Yet there is a stark sense of composition, and the characters in their stylized roles can be truly moving. Griffith is unflinching in conveying the brutality of the murders (of the little girl and the old cellar-dweller). The irony of fate and the poetic justice of the two murderers killing each other is conveyed with admirable brevity. This movie already has the Hustonian "vanitas vanitatum" theme of Treasure of Sierra Madre and many "big caper"  stories. The final sequence is a stunner. Only an impenetrable cloud of smoke remains as all is reduced to ashes.

With great pleasure I watch this new restoration of a film that was insufferably painful to watch in the 1997 screening.

45 Le Giornate del Cinema Muto: Pordenone 3-10 ottobre 2026

Cover: Italia Almirante Manzini in La statua di carne (IT 1921, D: Mario Almirante). Photo: Cinematek / Cinémathèque royale de Belgique, Bruxelles.

Metropolis (DE 1927, D: Fritz Lang) 100 years. In his essay "The new movie supervillains", Danny Leigh compares Silicon Valley oligarchs with the mad scientist Rotwang and Fredersen, the dictator of the megacity. We are also reminded of Robot Maria, the soulless imitation of humanity. "Meet the new movie villains: Zuckerberg, Musk and Altman. Unflattering portraits await all three tech titans — but while filmmakers vilify AI, studios are investing in it hungrily. From left: Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and Elon Musk are all subjects of films due for release in the coming months that portray them in a negative light" © The Red Dress. Financial Times Weekend, 3 October 2026.

CATALOGO 2026 ONLINE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Premio Jean Mitry / The Jean Mitry Award

The Jonathan Dennis Memorial Lecture

L’arte dei costumi / Costume Design and Silent Cinema

Collegium 2026

The 2026 Pordenone Masterclasses

Eventi speciali / Special Events

• Don Q, Son of Zorro

• A colpi di note / Striking a New Note

• Kurutta ippēji / A Page of Madness

• The Iron Horse

Weimar senza censure / Weimar Uncensored: Taboos and Transgressions in German Cinema, 1919-1920

Italia Almirante Manzini – 2

Marshall Neilan

L’arte del benshi / The Art of the Benshi

Cinema spagnolo / Spanish Cinema, 1896 - 1919

Lazio

Avanguardia ceca / Czech Avant-Garde

Le radici della commedia di situazione/ The Roots of Situation Comedy

Follia femminile / Female Madness

Cinema delle origini / Early Cinema

• Il progetto Biograph / The Biograph Project – 3

• Le corse fantasma / Phantom Tram Rides

• Antichità greco-romane / Greco-Roman Antiquities

Il canone rivisitato / The Canon Revisited

• Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru / The Outlaw and His Wife

• Bestia

• La Glace à trois faces

• Tell It to the Marines

• Zhizn za zhizn / [A Life for a Life]

Sine nomine – 3

Riscoperte e restauri / Rediscoveries and Restorations

Anna-Liisa Hämäläinen: Riitta Nelimarkka: hiekanjyvässä kallio / [A Bedrock Within a Grain of Sand] (a book)

 

Anna-Liisa Hämäläinen: Riitta Nelimarkka: hiekanjyvässä kallio / [A Bedrock Within a Grain of Sand] (2026). Book cover design: Timo Numminen. 

Anna-Liisa Hämäläinen: Riitta Nelimarkka: hiekanjyvässä kallio/ [A Bedrock Within a Grain of Sand]. 368 pages. Hard cover. EAN 9789528503309. Docendo, 19 March 2026.

DOCENDO OFFICIAL: "Riitta Nelimarkka – A Bedrock Within a Grain of Sand. The story of an uncompromising artist’s growth.

Riitta Nelimarkka’s biography recounts the journey of a multi-talented child from a Munkkiniemi family into a distinctive artist—a person for whom freedom, family, and love are paramount.

Professor Riitta Nelimarkka’s art radiates glowing colors and infectious joy. She is one of the most versatile and renowned contemporary Finnish artists.

Born in Helsinki in 1948, Nelimarkka is the granddaughter of the painter Eero Nelimarkka and the daughter of the inventor and engineer Antti Nelimarkka. Although she could have become a pianist, she dedicated her life to the visual arts instead. Nelimarkka achieved her breakthrough with her animated films Sammon tarina (The Story of the Sampo) and Seitsemän veljestä (Seven Brothers). Her works have been featured in numerous exhibitions and festivals—both in Finland and abroad—as well as at Bonga Castle in Loviisa, a venue dedicated to her art.

The biography also reveals the person behind the artworks, sharing both the joys and sorrows of her life."

AA: Riitta Nelimarkka is a master of Finnish animation and a pathbreaker with inspired works such as Sammon tarina I-VI (FI 1972-1974), Piispa Henrik ja Lalli (1975), Seitsemän veljestä (FI 1979), Bagatelles 1-13 (1984), directed together with her husband Jaakko Seeck, based on Nelimarkka's delightful watercolours, animated via the cutout method.

Seitsemän veljestä, a foundational work in Finnish literature, has not been much filmed. There is only one live action theatrical movie (Wilho Ilmari, 1939) plus teleplays, such as Jouko Turkka's controversial tv series in 12 episodes (1989). Riitta Nelimarkka distinction is in capturing delightfully Kivi's sense of humour and fantasy and his feeling for nature. Hers is a work of lasting value.

However, animation is but a fraction in Nelimarkka's incredible creativity. She is a painter, sculptor, photographer, printmaker, textile artist and art book creator. In moving images, her interests include musical videos and documentaries. She has published dozens of books. Her hundreds of exhibitions range from Soul to Doha and from Los Angeles to Lima. Her specialties include large-format series of tapestries, charcoal works, serigraphies, wool reliefs and photomontages. 

An iconoclast, an irreverent dissident, always finding new angles. This book is a breathtaking survey about a restless soul. On pages 333-339 there is a curriculum vitae in small print. It is a good place to start studying the book, which is a biography (written in the third person) but transparently also a quasi-autobiography and even an anti-biography. It is a story of an artist's life which is inseparably also a story of a family. Riitta's grandfather Eero Nelimarkka was a model in combining artistic talent and a solid business sense. They can come into conflict, but the conflict can turn into a source of creativity and productivity.

Hiekanjyvässä kallio is a thorough and abundant contribution to the literature of (Finnish) animation and art. A story of an amazing life. Well illustrated, it gives a sense of Nelimarkka's colourful world and imagery.

In Riitta Nelimarkka's adventurous life, truth is stranger than fiction, yet again.

Mari Mantela: After Ego

 

Mari Mantela: After Ego (FI 2026). Esko Roine (first brother), Jouni Innilä (first lawyer), Alvari Stenbäck (survey engineer), Salla Lintonen (second lawyer), Ilmari Saarelainen (second brother). 

FI © 2026 Liberté. P: Pauliina Teirikari, Mari Mantela, Jani Kumpulainen.

    D+SC: Mari Mantela. DP: Jani Kumpulainen. M: Panu Aaltio.

    C: Esko Roine, Ilmari Saarelainen (the brothers), Jouni Innilä, Salla Lintonen (the lawyers), Alvari Stenbäck (maanmittausinsinööri), Jose Arppe, Noel Arppe (the brothers as children).

    Loc: Keuruu.

    17 min

    Links: Letterboxd  |  IMDb

    Sodankylän Elokuvajuhlat / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) 2026

    Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival 2026. Kotimainen kilpailu: Mitä jäljelle jää / National Competition: What Remains.

    Vimeo link viewed 28 Sep 2026

MSFF 2026: "In After Ego, a boundary stone between the lands of two elderly brothers has disappeared. Accompanied by their lawyers and a surveying engineer, the men meet each other during a boundary survey, on the separate sides of their childhood stream."

  

"Elokuvassa After Ego iäkkäiden veljesten maiden välinen rajapyykki on kadonnut. Asianajajat ja maanmittausinsinööri seuranaan, miehet kohtaavat toisensa rajankäynnissä lapsuutensa purolla." (MSFF 2026)

AA: In Mari Mantela's compact tale, two brothers in grand old age go through a dispute over a boundary marker. A twist in the communication is that one brother (Esko Roine) is mute and uses a talking keyboard, a text-to-speech generating device. Both also bring their lawyers.

The situation would be ripe for embellishments of all kinds, including an all-out Laurel & Hardy type escalation.

No escalation takes place. The survey engineer performs a sober research on site. No boundary marker is found. Yet documents help to a conclusive result. No meaningful reason for dispute remains.

The drama evaporates, and we are left reflecting on the potential for disaster. Mantela gives no explanation to the roots of the rift between the brothers. All too often families are broken because of disputes of inheritance. Yet what could be more valuable than a good family spirit? Kieslowski's Dekalog: Ten (about a stamp collection) is a classic cinematic statement. In the laconic mise-en-scène there is mythic-Biblical aspect (Cain and Abel) seasoned with a touch of the theatre of the absurd.

Ástin sem eftir er / The Love That Remains (in person: Sverrir Guðnason)

Hlynur Pálmason: Ástin sem eftir er / The Love That Remains (IS/DK/SE/FR 2025). Saga Garðarsdóttir (mother Anna), sitting. Sverrir Guðnason (father Magnús), horizontal outside the frame.

Sverrir Guðnason and AA at Gilda 1, Helsinki, 26 Sep 2029. Foto Laura Folino / Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) 2026.

Director: Hlynur Pálmason

Starring: Saga Garðarsdóttir, Sverrir Gudnason, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir

Country: Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, France

Languages: English, French, Icelandic

Subtitles: English

Duration: 109 min

Theme: Nordic Council Film Prize Nominees

Keywords: Family ties, Relationship with nature, Humour, Love

    Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) 2026

    In person: Sverrir Guðnason, hosted by AA.

    Previewed on a screener, 25 Sep 2029

    Visited at Kino Engel 1, Helsinki, 25 Sep 2029

    Visited at Gilda 1, Helsinki, 26 Sep 2029

AA: After the maximalism of Volada land / Godland, Hlynur Pálmason aspires to minimalism in Ástin sem eftir er.

Even here he can't help himself providing magnificent images of Icelandic landscapes, growing towards a transcendentalist vision.

Simultaneously, Ástin sem eftir er is an intimate family story with a sensitive touch in psychological nuance and a sense of the authentic experience in family dynamics.

There is a mythological polarity in the family. Anna the mother and the artist (Saga Garðarsdóttir) is profoundly earthbound, if not quite the "Earth mother", and her art is certainly not minimalistic. She works in the large format at an industrial studio, and having been evicted from it, in the great outdoors.

Magnús the father and the seafarer (Sverrir Guðnason) spends weeks on the high seas on a herring trawler. The profession of an ocean fisherman is still one of the most dangerous in the world. To top that, Magnús also contributes as a minesweeper, finding and demining seabound explosives dating back to WWII.

Anna and Magnús have recently separated, and Magnús is increasingly becoming a stranger at his own (former) home, being made to feel that he has overstayed his welcome. He is simply away too much and does not contribute to the everyday life as much as Anna would expect.

The three children are played by the director's own children, and the dog is his own dog. At Cannes Film Festival, the dog was the only one to win a prize. All actors would have deserved one.

The art seen in the movie is also by the director Hlynur Pálmason, and he even conducted the cinematography of the film which was many years in the making. It was shot on 35 mm in Academy. The distinction of the cinematography is conveying the brilliant light of Iceland. It lends a unique luminous quality to the movie - pure, crisp, and clear. In the instant, you can see eternity. A similar but different quality is in movies shot in Lapland.

In the finale, Magnús jumps to the ocean and remains floating adrift in his waterproof outfit. In the Q&A sections after the screenings, Sverrir Guðnason told that such is the occasional habit of sailors.

We are left pondering on the associations of that prolonged final sequence. The perils of patriarchy? Earth mothers no longer indulging seafaring fathers? 

A film of the year is The Odyssey (US 2026). In today's world, Penelope might not wait 20 years for Odysseus' homecoming but pick the best of the suitors - or perhaps Calypso or Nausicaa.

Ástin sem eftir er gets better and deeper the more one sees it and reflects on it. The final image may also be about us cast adrift in a world where we keep living like there is no tomorrow.

...

Otto Kylmälä (HIFF 2026): "This breakup story from Iceland tenderly explores the complex web of family, love, and shared memories."

"Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, The Love That Remains is a poetic and gentle exploration into the ordinary days of one Icelandic family that tries to navigate through the subtle changes of the parents’ divorce and co-parenting. The film dives into the fisher father’s and the artist mother’s new lives gently and realistically, until a huge rooster and a scarecrow come to haunt them as dreamy symbols."

"In the films of the award-winning Hlynur Pálmason (Godland, R&A 2022), Icelandic nature becomes one of the protagonists. The cinematic poem, set around the changing of the seasons, moves forward like a living collage: broad Icelandic landscapes become emotional counterpoints to different details and textures, rusty works of art and flowing waterfalls of herrings."

"Instead of offering clean solutions, the film is a beautifully subtle dramedy and a thoughtful investigation of what remains when love changes. It lingers on the ambiguities, inviting the audience to feel the characters’ diverse feelings that flow like the tide." Otto Kylmälä (translated by Vilja Hynynen), R&A 2026

Otto Kylmälä (HIFF 2026): "Islantilainen erotarina tutkii hellästi perheen, rakkauden ja jaettujen muistojen monimutkaisia rihmastoja."

"Cannesissa ensi-iltansa saanut The Love That Remains on runollinen ja hellävarainen tutkimusmatka islantilaiseen perheeseen, joka yrittää navigoida vanhempien eron ja yhteisvanhemmuuden hienovaraisissa muutoksissa. Elokuva uppoutuu kalastajaisän ja kuvataitelijaäidin uuteen elämänrytmiin lempeän realistisesti, kunnes jättimäinen kukko ja maalitauluna käytetty variksenpelätin saapuvat kummittelemaan unenomaisina symboleina."

"Palkitun Hlynur Pálmasonin (Kutsumus, R&A 2022) elokuvissa Islannin luonto nousee yhdeksi päähenkilöksi. Vuodenaikojen vaihtumisen ympärille rakennettu runoelma etenee kuin elävä kollaasi: laajat islantilaiset maisemat muuttuvat emotionaalisiksi vastakohdiksi erilaisille yksityiskohdille ja tekstuureille, ruosteisille taideteoksille ja putouksena virtaaville silakkaseinämille."

"Sen sijaan, että elokuva tarjoaisi siistejä ratkaisuja, se on kauniin hienovarainen draamakomedia ja pohdiskeleva tutkimus siitä, mitä jää jäljelle rakkauden muuttuessa. Se viipyy monitulkintaisuudessa kutsuen katsojat tuntemaan hahmojen mukana vuoroveden lailla virtaavat moninaiset tunteet." Otto Kylmälä, R&A 2026

Yön lapsi (2026) / Nightborn (Finnish gala premiere) in person: Hanna Bergholm, Ilja Rautsi, Seidi Haarla, Eicca Toppinen

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

AA: Hanna Bergholm's Pahanhautoja / Hatching (2022) and Yön lapsi / Nightborn are among the best Finnish horror films ever made. The screenwriter in both is Ilja Rautsi. Their vision is unique, their approach original, their shock impact direct. Feminine horror has been a remarkable trend in 21st century cinema. It is not merely about women directing horror stories just as well as men. Women bring a new sensibility, a new emotional intelligence, a new physical experience. 

"Yön lapsi" means literally "child of the night", with associations to Dracula: "Listen to them: children of the night! What music they make".

Yön lapsi confirms Bergholm's authentic talent in horror. The touch is assured as she navigates in preposterous nightmare situations, unafraid to follow outlandish premises to extreme conclusions. She removes us from our comfort zone and shoves us into 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 knows her tradition well and uses her 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, a ruin in the process of returning to nature, a traditional Gothic subject. The motif of the monster baby is combined with a "revenge of the nature" motif. It 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 are 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 sex anyway (unless displaced into cybersex). By now, people are mostly interested in taking selfies. 

Yön lapsi can be seen as the ultimate nightmare of having a baby, destroying the couple, alienating all friends and relatives and becoming a threat to humanity. In the twisted language of dreamwork it turns a dark mirror onto ourselves. We are the children of the night.

...

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

Everybody Digs Bill Evans

 

Grant Gee: Everybody Digs Bill Evans (IE/GB 2026). Anders Danielsen Lie as Bill Evans.

A biopic

    Director  Grant Gee

Starring  Anders Danielsen Lie, Bill Pullman, Laurie Metcalf, Isabelle Harriet

Country  Ireland, United Kingdom

Languages  English

Duration  102 min

Theme  The Power of Music

    Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) 2026

Viewed at Savoy-teatteri, Helsinki, 22 Sep 2026

NB. The movie shares the title with the 1959 Bill Evans album Everybody Digs Bill Evans, but it has nothing to do with it. The focus is instead in the 1961 Village Vanguard sessions of the Bill Evans Trio. Plus there is an independent score composed by Roger Gould.

Johanna Siik (HIFF 2026): "In July 1961, jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans was confronted by a tragedy, when bassist Scott LaFaro died in a car accident. The death impacted Evans’s own ability to play music and contributed to his heroin addiction worsening. Without the support of his brother Harry’s family as well as a period of forced rest at his parent’s home in Florida, it is questionable whether Evans would have ever been able to return to playing.

For a biopic of a musician, this film, outside of the opening credits, includes fairly little music. Evans’ best-known song, Waltz for Debby, is beautifully placed in its tender context. Apart from that, we experience an interval, something that also belongs to music.

Grant Gee’s film, which received the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, presents us with flashes of the inevitable: more people die, as does, in the end, Evans himself. From the black-and-white focus of the tale and a future distorted by colours is born a broken melody, which is presented harmoniously as the protagonist (played by Anders Danielsen Lie) marches towards his next period of creativity.

After the movie, one can tune into Yle Areena to take in a living room concert filmed in Lauttasaari in Helsinki in 1970, in which Evans and his trio perform three songs in the course of an interview." Johanna Siik

Johanna Siik (HIFF 2026): "Kaunistelematon kuvaus muusikko Bill Evansin vaikeasta vuodesta 1961, jota ennen ja jonka jälkeen syntyi maailman parasta jazzmusiikkia.

Heinäkuussa 1961 jazzpianisti ja säveltäjä Bill Evansia kohtasi tragedia: kontrabasisti Scott LaFaro kuoli auto-onnettomuudessa. Tapahtuma vaikutti merkittävästi paitsi Evansin soittokykyyn, myös heroiinin käytön eskaloitumiseen. Ilman veljensä Harryn perhettä ja pakkolepolomaa vanhempiensa luona Floridassa Evans tuskin olisi toipunut takaisin pianon äärelle.

Henkilökuvaksi muusikosta elokuvassa kuullaan alkutekstejä lukuun ottamatta vähäisesti musiikkia. Evansin ehkä kuuluisin kappale, Waltz for Debby, asetetaan hienosti herkkään kontekstiinsa. Muutoin eletään väliaikaa, joka ”joskus kuuluu musiikkiin”.

Grant Geen ohjaamassa, Berliinin elokuvajuhlilla Hopeisella karhulla palkitussa elokuvassa nähdään välähdyksiä väistämättömästä, jossa kuolee lisää ihmisiä ja lopulta Evans itsekin. Mustavalkoisesta kertomuksen painopisteestä ja väreillä vääristetystä tulevaisuudesta syntyy rikkinäinen melodia, joka kuitenkin kerrotaan harmonisesti päähenkilönsä (Anders Danielsen Lie) kulkiessa kohti seuraavaa luomiskautta.

Elokuvan päälle voi katsella Yle Areena -palvelusta Helsingin Lauttasaaressa vuonna 1970 kuvatun olohuonekonsertin, jossa Evans esittää silloisen trionsa kanssa kolme kappaletta haastattelun lomassa." Johanna Siik

AA: The music of the Bill Evans Trio is subdued to convey a hidden power. Like a pressure cooker or a power plant. The music is subtle, gentle, soft, controlled and cool like a mountain creek. A pure stream of consciousness in sharp focus. Grace under pressure.

Ten days after the Village Vanguard Sessions of 25 June 1961 the bassist Scott LaFaro dies in a car crash, and Bill Evans, the pianist-bandleader, lands into a severe crisis, worsened by a heroin habit.

Like Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (US 2025), Everybody Digs Bill Evans focuses on an "intermission" to quote the title of the 2013 novel by Owen Martell on which the movie is based. A void, a transition, a suspension, a calm before a new beginning... or nothingness.

Grant Gee lifts bodily from D. A. Pennebaker's Daybreak Express. He is an aficionado of jazz cinema, experimental film of the 1950s and the 1960s and modernist French and Italian cinema of the period. At times the film feels like an hommage, but Gee stays outside of pastiche and creates something fresh from great legacies.

It is a sensitive study of a psychological crisis and family dynamics. The black and white imagery is stark and expressive. The associative montage is assured and tender. It is about art as a matter of life and death.

There are three deaths. Death is the invisible stranger, present everywhere and nowhere.

Great performances by Anders Danielsen Lie (Bill Evans), Bill Pullman (father Harry), Laurie Metcalf (mother Mary), Barry Ward (brother Harry Jr.) and Valene Kane (Ellaine Schultz, tragic girlfriend).

At home after the screening we immediately sought our copy of the complete Village Vanguard Sessions and started to listen. This double cd was the purchase number four in my "jazz record of the week" project 12 years ago, curated by Emu Lehtinen at the Digelius Music store. A pure treasure, it sounds even better now after seeing the movie.

Scott LaFaro (bass), Bill Evans (piano) and Paul Motian (drums) at the Village Vanguard, Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Village, New York City.

DATA FROM DISCOGS: The Bill Evans Trio – The Village Vanguard Sessions

Double CD compilation

Essential Jazz Classics – EJC55564

Country: Spain

Released: 2012

Genre: Jazz

Style: cool jazz

Contains all the material from Sunday At The Village Vanguard (1961) and Waltz For Debby (1962) plus the unreleased track "I Loves You Porgy". 

Recorded 25 June 1961. 

CD 1

1 Alice In Wonderland

2 My Foolish Heart

3 All Of You

4 My Romance

5 Some Other Time

6 Solar

7 Gloria's Step

8 My Man's Gone Now

9 All Of You

10 Detour Ahead

11 Conversation

12 Waltz For Debby

CD 2

1 Alice In Wonderland

2 I Loves You Porgy

3 My Romance

4 Milestones

5 Detour Ahead

6 Gloria's Step

7 Waltz For Debby

8 All Of You

9 Jade Visions

10 Jade Visions

11 A Few Final Bars

Piano – Bill Evans

Bass – Scott LaFaro

Drums – Paul Motian

Art Direction – Tony Lane

Liner Notes – Michael James

Photography By – Melvin Sokolsky

Producer – Orrin Keepnews, Orrin Keepnews

Recorded By, Engineer – Dave Jones

Remastered By – Mike Reese