Kaija Pakarinen

The life of Juulia, a Finnish parliamentarian, is suddenly turned upside down by the discovery of the betrayal by her husband Matias, a Protestant pastor, with the young Enni. After an initial moment of anger and desperation, Juulia realizes that she cannot leave him and she understands that sometimes it is possible to sacrifice a part of one's individual happiness for the good of the people you love. For this reason she suggests to Matias that they open their relationship, a choice that will lead her to meet Miska, a young non-binary, who is also her girlfriend, and to experiment with polyamory naturally and spontaneously, with all the consequences of the case, positive and negative.

11-year-old Kiti does something forbidden: she secretly opens her Christmas present ahead of time. The package has clearly been switched, and Kiti begins to investigate the matter. Before Christmas Eve comes to an end, the culprit is revealed. Who is the thief, and what is the reason for the theft?

Wedding planner Joanna needs to find herself a fake boyfriend to cheer up her depressed father. As if on demand, an eccentric undertaker enters Joanna's life with her own motives for looking for a girlfriend. At the same time, Joanna receives some earth-shattering news and nothing can ever go back to the way it was.

Hunt for the elusive tofu in the Arctic Circle.

Priest and the Ugly Christmas Tree is a small Christmas tale about a recently appointed pastor, who notices how the suburban residents are struggling in the slushy, Finnish Christmas landscape. He decides to cheer them up, get the largest Christmas tree in the area and recruit the community to help decorate it. Based on true events from a few years ago.

After the bankruptcy of their fine dining restaurant, the Eerolas are stuck in the seaside village of Nauvo with no clear plan for the future. In the shadow of the father’s depression both the mother and the teenage daughter rebel against the stagnant life, each in their own way. In the magical light of the midnight sun, new loves begin while others come to an end.

During one spring day, nine people dreaming of life or running away from it, plus a dog on the run, either meet, pass or collide on a certain road. Sisters Seija and Sanna are on their way to the airport because Seija is moving to Canada. Silja and Ville are mourning the anniversary of their dead daughter. The comedy duo is off on a tour after a long break, the paramedics are looking forward to a quiz night and Anita is finally ready to scatter the ashes of her deceased loved one in the lake. A strange man hitchhikes along the highway.

A restaurateur befriends a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived in Finland.

Anna is a 16-year old in a village where women are accused of witchcraft. It's based on the witch hunts on Åland, Finland in the 1600s.

Is love eternal? Or ideology? When erstwhile communists meet at a food course the result is quite the concoction.

The life of a heroine. The life and work of Hella Wuolijoki. A poet, spy and millionaire, she turned into an internationally acclaimed businesswoman, politician and playwright, who collaborated with Europe's leading writers such as Bertolt Brecht and Maxim Gorky, but faced the harshness of a changing world as the Finnish, Soviet and British secret services focus on her life, family and work.

A political drama set in the fictional country of Illyria between 1943 and 1945, the story is about the assassination of a leading politician. The country, an ally of Nazi Germany, is on the verge of being annexed to the Eastern Bloc. Kaurismäki's TV adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's play Les Mains Sales (Dirty Hands) tells the story of Hugo (Matti Pellonpää) who has just been released from prison. Before going to prison, he has worked as a journalist at his party's newspaper. This timid journalist, who uses the pseudonym Raskolnikov, wants to advance in his career and gets his chance when Hoederer (Sulevi Peltola), the leader of the party, has to be eliminated.

In 1980s Helsinki, a city about to burst with young energy and rebellion, two young writers determined to conquer the world fall madly in love. For Inka, the love affair puts everything in motion: she finds her own voice, publishes her first novel, and becomes a sensation. The intensity of their relationship has a different affect on Juhana, who starts to lose his grip on writing and, finally, life. At the height of the love affair Inka starts to suspect that their mad love might actually be real madness.

Mikko Virtanen feels like a Swedish soul trapped in a Finnish body. Full of disgust for everything Finnish, he sees Sweden as heaven. Upon meeting a suicidal Swedish psychologist Mikael Anderson, he seizes an opportunity for an identity switch. Raspberry Boat Refugee is a comedy about cultural differences in the Nordic countries, their nationalism and, not least, prejudices about our neighbours. It also proves how futile it is to try to escape oneself.

A young and ambitious civil servant Jussi finds himself being in charge of the environmental permit of a huge nickel and uranium mine in Northern Finland. The Talvivaara mine, led by a charismatic globe trotting visioner Pekka Perä is introducing an entirely new method of collecting minerals whilst creating jobs in one of the poorest areas in Scandinavia. Jussi slowly discovers that he has been led astray by several people and that the new method has serious downsides he did not forsee. The mine is causing environmental hazards that are being hushed down. A new application for another permit is brough to his table by the same mine. Along with the application comes an interesting job offer and a chance of a new beginning. Jussi has to decide whether he will play along and if so, with whom.

Stigu and Ella have a just-sex relationship. Stigu is secretly in love but settles for what he can get because Ella wants nothing more. Until they find themselves in a same work project: designing an advertisement for the Family Federation on sustainable relationships. It seems like mission impossible since Ella doesn't believe in the whole concept and Stigu knows nothing about it.

8-Ball tells the story of single mother Pike who, having just been released from prison, is trying to start her life anew. When her former boyfriend Lalli comes back from abroad, it opens a window into a past that Pike wants to put behind her.

Karri, Pete, André, Akseli and Joni dream, party, love and boast like only teenage males can. They're dealing with the same issues as every other young man — fears and hopes for future, disillusions and problems with parents.

Sakari and Veera get engaged, madly in love. Not long after, Veera asks Sakari to help her in a matter relating to her father, and in a way that completely shocks Sakari. He does everything in his power to stop her from pursuing her plan. But before the story is over, Sakari will be been forced to make choices he thought he'd never have to face.

Eero’s career as an author is spiraling down: he just can’t get started with his new novel. The ambitious actor Pihla is about to get her international break. Neither of them is willing to sacrifice their career even though their relationship is doing worse than ever. Void is a comedy-drama about the price of success and the agony of failure, and about situations where your partner just doesn’t get it.

Stars above follows the stories of three women from the same family across three different decades. The main characters – Saima, Tuulikki and Salla – each lives in the same country house. Saima´s story takes place in the war time 1942, when Finland fought against Soviet Union, Tuulikki´s story in colourful year 1978 and Salla´s story in the present day. Each woman is between 30 and 40. This deep and beautiful, yet humorous film pictures the encounters between people and the possibilities for choice. How much does the time we live in affect us - and our ability to hold on to our dreams? What are those things which we pass on from one generation to the next? What changes, what remains the same? And to what extent do mothers´ choices, let alone their unspoken secrets, affect their daughters´ lives?

Arriving in Helsinki, a nameless man is beaten within an inch of his life by thugs, miraculously recovering only to find that he has completely lost his memory. Back on the streets, he attempts to begin again from zero, befriending a moody dog and becoming besotted with a Salvation Army volunteer.

No synopsis available yet.

Ari, a paramedic, is a chronic womanizer; he makes it a point of pride to never sleep with the same woman twice, and his nights are a long series of brazen one-night stands. But when Ari meets Tiina, something unexpected happens – he falls in love.

For the longest time, Anja Huovinen has been putting up with her husband’s (Juuso Hirvikangas) drinking and slackness. But she has reached the limit. Elonkorjuu is a tragicomedy about what happens when a person stops being useful to anyone. The story is black and warm as freshly brewed Finnish coffee.

After his wife leaves him, a man becomes obsessed getting his family back together by buying an old house.

The film shows how Midsummer was celebrated in North Karelia in 1973.

No synopsis available yet.

With few options, newly pardoned convict Leila agrees to work as an assistant to a blind pastor. Father Jacob spends his days answering the letters of the needy, which Leila finds pointless. But when the letters stop, the pastor is devastated and Leila finds herself cast in a new role.

No synopsis available yet.

The ever-poker-faced Ilona loses her job as a restaurant hostess, as her tram driver husband, Lauri, also finds himself out of work. Together they must hit the streets of Helsinki, facing up to hardship and humiliation in their quest for survival, guided through the gloom by a ray of hope.

Middle-aged Maire's husband spends most of his time abroad on business. Alone in their large house, Maire fills her empty life by absorbing other people's tragedies from tabloid newspapers. Obsessed by the story about a young single mother whose husband was killed and the killer got away with it, she befriends the young widow who would rather forget the whole event and go on with her life.

A middle-aged woman wants a child and starts to look for a suitable father when she doesn't succeed in the plan with her husband.

In 1860s Lapland, gold diggers Jakob Ervast and Nils Lepistö, who previously worked in California, embark on an arduous journey towards the north. The friends find gold at the first excavation site, which Kittilä's crown prince Konrad Planting and Edvard Manninen also start looking for.

A comedy of an amateur puppet theater, eviction and modern women with their old-fashioned methods.

A hospital room drama in which women talk about love, children, relationships with men, and life in general. Stories of survival are seasoned with both tears and laughter.

Viltteri, a balding guy in his thirties living in rural northern Finland, is hopelessly clueless about his new role as a married man and the father of a newborn son. A perfect escape from family responsibilities is having to get his old Hillman Minx repaired and inspected for road-worthiness, with a little help from an eccentric bunch of friends who never seem to have grown up either.

A story about the conflicting emotions of love and hate, duty and selfishness in the human mind.

A group of Finns have won a cruise and this is how they behave on it.

No synopsis available yet.

Two men, Nieminen and Varjola, commit a mail van robbery. Varjola betrays his friend: shoots him and takes the loot. Nieminen is arrested, but he refuses to reveal his accomplice's name. On his first leave on prison Nieminen finds Varjola in a small town, where he has became the mayor. Varjola, of course, is shocked to see his old friend again.