The following films are part of a distribution collaboration between Raina and AV-Arkki. AV-arkki is the most important expert organization for the promotion of Finnish media art.
THE KING (2024)
Directed by Veli Granö & Milja Viita
8mins
In 1975 Finnish singer Rauli Badding Somerjoki sent a recording of his local hit "Lights" to Elvis Presley, hoping his idol might take a liking to it. Badding got no answer but soon after Elvis passed away, rumors started spreading in Finland potatoes resembling Elvis were growing on a field in Badding's home village of Somero. An experimental documentary about opportunities that never happened, and the remarkable link between world famous Elvis Presley and little-know Finn, Rauli Badding Somerjoki.
SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR POST-APOCALYPTIC CHILD (A) (2024)
Directed by Nastja Säde Rönkkö
5 mins
Survival Guide for a Post-Apocalyptic Child imagines and dreams potential futures. The work presents various perspectives on life in the middle of some major change: emotional and practical ways to survive catastrophes, upheavals or crises. Viewers are invited to immerse themselves in the themes by projecting them on their own emotions or contemporary global crises. How can we prepare for the unknown? What things would be worth preserving in such a situation? What knowledge and memories would we want to pass on to future generations? What would society be like after such an irreversible turning point?
THE ROOTLESS (2024)
Directed by August Joensalo
12 mins
Am I Karelian? Am I allowed to call myself Karelian? As a filmmaker attempts to understand the reasons behind losing the language and traditions of their ancestors, they suddenly lose their grandfather, the family’s last link to Karelian culture and language. Through following this intimate relationship between grandfather and grandchild just before his passing, the film builds an archive of loss; personal, generational and societal.
AN UNCOUNTABLE NUMBER OF THREADS (2024)
Directed by Iona Roisin
21 mins
Composed of footage shot while travelling on group excursions across Russia in 2019, An Uncountable Number of Threads is an attempt to draw out the ethical restrictions of a travelogue, while questioning how (and why) to make one.
SCENIC VIEW (2023)
Directed by Maija Blåfield
16 mins
Finland has the most forest in Europe, but primeval forest has become so rare that it almost feels fictional. Is it now the enchanted forest? And is a commercial forest real? As nature documentaries are all staged, are they fiction? Scenic View is a nature film about how we look at a forest landscape, but also about how we look at reality.
HOPE (2023)
Directed by Juhani Koivumäki
17 mins
Three-part short documentary “Hope” discovers the kind of dreams different people have, whilst also considering how the tone of these wishes changes according to varying life circumstances. By experiencing all of these wishes together, the spectator is urged to reflect upon their own personal hopes and desires.
HOUSE OF THE WICKEDEST MAN IN THE WORLD (2023)
Directed by Jan Ijäs
Short Documentary 24 minutes
House of the Wickedest Man in the World is the story of a ruined building near the city of Cefalú in Sicily. In the early 1920s, Aleister Crowley, the most famous occultist of his time, lived in the building, practicing magical rituals. In the summer of 1955, Kenneth Anger, considered one of the pioneers of experimental cinema, traveled with sexologist Alfred Kinsey to Sicily to find Aleister Crowley's temple to shoot a film about the occultist’s time in Cefalú. The Thelema Abbey film was never released.