Directing

John Webster

Born 1967-05-02 · Helsinki, Finland

John Webster is a Finnish director and screenwriter.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Lessons in Fire poster
7.3

As wildfires rage ever more fiercely across Europe, Finnish and Portuguese firefighters join forces on the front lines. This visually stunning documentary takes viewers into the flames and shows humanity's struggle against nature's most destructive force.

Lessons in Fire

2025

Lessons in Fire poster
7.3

As wildfires rage ever more fiercely across Europe, Finnish and Portuguese firefighters join forces on the front lines. This visually stunning documentary takes viewers into the flames and shows humanity's struggle against nature's most destructive force.

Lessons in Fire

2025

Donner - Private poster
6.5

Jörn Donner’s entire production can be considered as a self-portrait, a life-spanning performance. Whilst others have painted one image or another of Donner, John Webster’s interpretation differs in that it pulls most of its material from Donner’s last-intended interview in December 2019, and an immense never-before-seen collection of photographs from albums simply labelled “Donner – Privat”. As a result, the film morphs into an epilogue of sorts, of Donner’s life story.

Donner - Private

2021

No artwork available
7.0

The documentary traces the whereabouts of the KGB agent Anatoli Golitsyn using few short audio recordings owned by the filmmaker's father.

Different Trains

1996

No artwork available
7.0

The documentary traces the whereabouts of the KGB agent Anatoli Golitsyn using few short audio recordings owned by the filmmaker's father.

Different Trains

1996

A City Symphony poster
8.0

The Helsinki of the 1990s, longed for by many, comes to life in Heikki Ahola's City Symphony. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, this classic montage film offers a unique glimpse into the pulsating life of the capital at all hours of the day. More than 30 young filmmakers worked on the documentary. Filmed between September 1993 and February 1995, City Symphony encounters the contrasting spirits of Helsinki – including unemployment and luxury, homeliness and internationalism. As the title suggests, music plays a central role in the film, with Tuomas Kantelinen responsible for the score. You won't find a more comprehensive journey through 1990s Helsinki than Kaupunkisinfonia. The world just before the breakthrough of the internet and the economic boom already looks very different.

A City Symphony

1995

A City Symphony poster
8.0

The Helsinki of the 1990s, longed for by many, comes to life in Heikki Ahola's City Symphony. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, this classic montage film offers a unique glimpse into the pulsating life of the capital at all hours of the day. More than 30 young filmmakers worked on the documentary. Filmed between September 1993 and February 1995, City Symphony encounters the contrasting spirits of Helsinki – including unemployment and luxury, homeliness and internationalism. As the title suggests, music plays a central role in the film, with Tuomas Kantelinen responsible for the score. You won't find a more comprehensive journey through 1990s Helsinki than Kaupunkisinfonia. The world just before the breakthrough of the internet and the economic boom already looks very different.

A City Symphony

1995

The Happy Worker - Or How Work Was Sabotaged poster
7.2

Our premise is that work has become an act of self-sabotage. Empty corporate jargon, ever-changing management fashions and self-serving bureaucracy masquerading as efficiency hijacked the purpose of work. Creative documentary The Happy Worker will show how we got to this point and the very human behavior that led us here. We want to show how this unhealthy system is maintained and what keeps us from calling bullshit.

The Happy Worker - Or How Work Was Sabotaged

2022

The Happy Worker - Or How Work Was Sabotaged poster
7.2

Our premise is that work has become an act of self-sabotage. Empty corporate jargon, ever-changing management fashions and self-serving bureaucracy masquerading as efficiency hijacked the purpose of work. Creative documentary The Happy Worker will show how we got to this point and the very human behavior that led us here. We want to show how this unhealthy system is maintained and what keeps us from calling bullshit.

The Happy Worker - Or How Work Was Sabotaged

2022

Recipes For Disaster poster
6.8

Director John Webster convinces his wife and two small children that the whole family should go on an oil diet, yet without having to give up their a middle class suburban lifestyle. All the everyday things that we don't do, or that we can't help doing, make up recipes for disaster. In this comedy of errors they find themselves questioning their values and putting to test their will power and ultimately, their happiness.

Recipes For Disaster

2008

Recipes For Disaster poster
6.8

Director John Webster convinces his wife and two small children that the whole family should go on an oil diet, yet without having to give up their a middle class suburban lifestyle. All the everyday things that we don't do, or that we can't help doing, make up recipes for disaster. In this comedy of errors they find themselves questioning their values and putting to test their will power and ultimately, their happiness.

Recipes For Disaster

2008

Vacuum-Cleaner Salesmen poster
8.1

Three vacuum cleaner salesmen go door-to-door selling dreams of dust-free homes and personal ambitions in a bleak Finland hit by the worst recession in history.

Vacuum-Cleaner Salesmen

1997

Vacuum-Cleaner Salesmen poster
8.1

Three vacuum cleaner salesmen go door-to-door selling dreams of dust-free homes and personal ambitions in a bleak Finland hit by the worst recession in history.

Vacuum-Cleaner Salesmen

1997

Redlight to Limelight poster
6.0

A group of sex workers and brothel youth form a film production house in the Kalighat redlight area, Kolkata, India. Despite the opposition from the conservative society, they are determined to become filmmakers, resist prostitution among the second generation, survive through the art of cinema, and aspire to transform the redlight area into a professional film colony in the post-pandemic time.

Redlight to Limelight

2025

Eye to Eye poster
6.3

For the family members of murder victims mourning is often postponed indefinitely. To unlock the trauma and begin the grieving, a method called restorative dialogue brings two parents - and the audience - eye to eye with the murderers.

Eye to Eye

2020

Eye to Eye poster
6.3

For the family members of murder victims mourning is often postponed indefinitely. To unlock the trauma and begin the grieving, a method called restorative dialogue brings two parents - and the audience - eye to eye with the murderers.

Eye to Eye

2020

Little Yellow Boots poster
6.5

Filmmaker John Webster sets out on a road-trip with his imaginary great granddaughter in an attempt to understand the moral and behavioural choices that make tackling climate change so difficult. A documentary film with humoristic overtones about a fundamental question: what is our responsibility to future generations?

Little Yellow Boots

2017

Little Yellow Boots poster
6.5

Filmmaker John Webster sets out on a road-trip with his imaginary great granddaughter in an attempt to understand the moral and behavioural choices that make tackling climate change so difficult. A documentary film with humoristic overtones about a fundamental question: what is our responsibility to future generations?

Little Yellow Boots

2017

Little Yellow Boots poster
6.5

Filmmaker John Webster sets out on a road-trip with his imaginary great granddaughter in an attempt to understand the moral and behavioural choices that make tackling climate change so difficult. A documentary film with humoristic overtones about a fundamental question: what is our responsibility to future generations?

Little Yellow Boots

2017

No artwork available
NR

Veteran soldier-skiers of the Winter War, today take part in an annual skiing competition. The Skiers tells the story in a handful of words and a few telling pictures.

Hiihtäjät

2007

No artwork available
NR

Veteran soldier-skiers of the Winter War, today take part in an annual skiing competition. The Skiers tells the story in a handful of words and a few telling pictures.

Hiihtäjät

2007

Don't Tell Daddy poster
8.0

In the freer climate of the 1990s, some young women from Estonia are enticed into Finland to work as dancers and entertainers. Many, like 18 years old Irma, find themselves doing striptease.

Don't Tell Daddy

1994

Don't Tell Daddy poster
8.0

In the freer climate of the 1990s, some young women from Estonia are enticed into Finland to work as dancers and entertainers. Many, like 18 years old Irma, find themselves doing striptease.

Don't Tell Daddy

1994

Rooms of Shadow and Light poster
3.3

The prostitutes of Bombay live a nightmare life, yet there are some people who try to bring a little light into the darkness of the brothels. The film follows the lives of women in two brothels in the slums of Bombay. Some of the women are old, some are very young, but they have all been cheated into the business. And cheated out of life. For ten years now, Vinay, a social worker, has been trying to help them by saving them from AIDS and giving them some comfort. Although they are degraded and exploited outcasts, these women manage to retain some human dignity and cheerfulness. And some hope.

Rooms of Shadow and Light

2001