This September, Finnish Film Affair is launching the first Finnish Weird, a new pitching session that welcomes with open arms promising talent presenting the freshest and most daring ideas. The open call accepts submissions from around the world in a wide variety of formats, including feature, short films, TV series, web series, documentaries, reality and transmedia projects –and of course, covering all genres.
This first Finnish Weird will be hosted by Mariangela Pluchino, a Helsinki-based, bright filmmaking talent. Pluchino has stepped into our stages before, having been Finnish Film Affair’s Filmmaker in Residence in 2022. She was also part of Berlinale Talents in 2023, and that same year co-founded the Film Tonight! -collective, together with three other filmmakers. United by their relationship with cinema, feminist values, film school history and immigrant experiences, Film Tonight! has signified a great addition to the Finnish filmmaking scene.
FFA is grateful, and lucky, to have Pluchino as F-Weird’s very first host. We couldn’t pass up the chance to ask her a couple of questions. We hope you enjoy the read!
FFA: We couldn’t be happier that you will be the host of FFA’s first Finnish Weird. In the context of filmmaking, how do you define weird?
Mariangela Pluchino: I think weird is defined in relation to the mainstream conventions. In the context of cinema, weird means the unconventional, let’s say formally: aesthetics, structure, the medium. Or weird in relation to the content: the topics explored.
Weird is also subjective, to me, because it is related to what one considers normal or conventional. In this context, it is clear that Finnish Film Affair is trying to give space for non-conventional projects and ideas, which I find brave! And it makes me so happy to join it as a host!
As a matter of fact, hosting F-Weird is a pretty comfortable position for me, since it is not me who is or has to be “weird”: I don’t need to be “funny”, I don’t need to be “weird”, I just need to hold space to welcome the ‘weird parade’. In any case, I’m nobody to define weird, I think the projects will do.
FFA: Speaking of holding space for novelty, together with Helena Aleksandrova, Jelica Jerinić, and Roxana Sadvokassova you opened the doors in 2023 to the Film Tonight! -collective. What connections have you been making through it?
MP: Film Tonight! was so needed and crucial for me and I think for them too.
Everything is so much easier when you navigate things as a collective, and not as a single individual. When you are a foreigner and cannot rely on your relatives, I believe it is also quite queer, and political, to create these kinds of meta-familiar bonds and associations. There is some sort of identity crack when you stop talking only on your behalf and have a structure that represents you. As a collective, it has been easier to approach others and establish connections with festivals, film labs, production companies abroad, art institutions, cinemas, other collectives, filmmakers, etc. both at a local and international level.
A very fertile terrain for connections is our physical space as well. Our office has become some sort of social and creative hub in Kallio for our community. After the pandemic it became necessary to inhabit new physical spaces, more live interactions, more pops-by and less Zoom meetings. We are at Aleksis Kiven katu 32, and we encourage the spontaneous swing by sharing a coffee, a story, or a film review.
FFA: As you witness and become involved in all these spontaneous encounters and interactions, what do you see the Finnish film industry needs to have more, in your opinion?
MP: Foreigners!
FFA: Short and to the point, and we couldn’t agree more! Now in a broader context, as a young filmmaker with a long way ahead, what future possibilities do you see in the film industry?
MP: The direction we are moving towards –with this hyper connection and overload of the senses by being immoderately exposed to images– doesn’t seem so sustainable to me. I have the feeling we will get to a point of overwhelmness that will force us to long for a more analog life experience: less images, less screens, less access to the internet, less immediacy.
Everyday it becomes more and more challenging to create a meaningful image, or compose a meaningful melody in this land of superfluity. Images have become so disposable and their value has dropped, which also has affected the industry, affecting the quality of conditions in which these images are produced and this translating into scarcity.
The [film] Industry is ruled by capitalism, and capitalism decides the value of things, of goods, of bodies. If we add to that the devastating cuts to arts that are being negotiated just now, and how pivotal this change will be in the films that will be produced, in the stories that will get to be told, then the future doesn’t sound very bright to me. However, I try to keep a foot outside of the industry, otherwise I could risk losing myself, and start to question: why did I get here in the first place?
I think the audiovisual industry has a big responsibility in terms of the direction they want to take the visual culture towards. I want to believe that one day we will wake up and we’ll realise that we need to slow the fuck down a bit and start operating in a more mindful way.
FFA: From being a student at AMPI (Academy of Moving People and Images) to pitching your film at Berlinale in 2023, the road has been probably very insightful. What are the two biggest lessons you’ve learned in these years?
MP: The first one is that It is crucial with whom you associate and spend time: your producer, your colleagues, classmates, gym buddies, friends, lovers, your flatmates, etc. In my process, my community and support structure have been everything.
The second lesson is that the process is not linear: from AMPI to pitch at Berlinale, the process is curvy, elliptical.
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Finnish Weird will take place on Wednesday 25.9 from 15-16. Applications close on Sunday 25.8, guidelines and application form can be found here.