The first picks for the upcoming Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy (19.-29.9.2024) are favourites from the Cannes, Venice and Midnight Sun film festivals. They are not to be seen in the regular programme of Finnish cinemas.
From one of the most prestigious names in contemporary Japanese cinema, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, (Best International Film Oscar winner and Cannes-awarded Drive My Car, HIFF 2021), HIFF screens his much anticipated new title Evil Does Not Exist. The film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, takes place in a small Japanese city, well known by its magnificent nature. The picturesque idyll begins to shatter when a big company arrives and presents its plans for a glamorous camping; “glamping”, a site to be built for the wealthy tourists seeking luxurious nature experiences. The story is told in a subtle way, but with refreshingly surprising twists and moments of gentle humour.
Berlinale’s Golden Bear winner Radu Jude (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, HIFF 2021) offers a masterfully confusing genre hybrid with his new film Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. Angela is an underpaid production assistant driving from gig to gig around Bucharest. Constantly spitting out curse words and creating odd TikTok videos with her bald avatar Bobita – who of course is friends with the infamous embodiment of toxic masculinity arrested in Romania, Andrew Tate – both Angela and the film crackle with brains, obscenity and political anger. This brilliant and bitingly witty satire confirms Radu Jude’s position as a uniquely talented and provocative filmmaker.
The Delinquents is a future cult classic by the Argentinian two-time Golden Bear nominee Rodrigo Moreno (The Custodian, A Mysterious World). The film premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, and is an astute existential heist movie that rewards viewers with a humorous fable about freedom. Two middle-aged bank workers decide that they’d rather rob the bank they work for and suffer the consequences than get stuck with their boring jobs for the next 25 years.
The uncompromising giant of Austrian cinema, Ulrich Seidl, has produced a strikingly morbid black comedy, Veni Vidi Vici, about filthy rich and morally rotten people. The Maynard family enjoys hunting, but doesn’t want to harm any animals… A ruthless satire about the corrupt super rich reminds of the films by Seidl himself, but also of Michael Haneke, Ruben Östlund and Catherine Breillat.
HIFF will also screen the audience favourites from the 2024 edition of the Midnight Sun Film Festival. Dag Johan Haugerud’s Sex is an entertaining film about two chimney sweeps living in monogamous, heterosexual marriages who both end up challenging their views on sexuality and gender roles, one after dreaming of David Bowie. Turkish filmmaker Selman Nacar’s second feature film Hesitation Wound is a stylish courtroom drama about corruption.
37. Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy takes place 19.-29.9.2024. Early bird serial cards are now available: Hurmio (5 tickets for 55 €), Paratiisi (12 tickets for 112 €) and Euforia (20 tickets for 180 €).
Whole programme will be released 5.9., but films will be revealed prior to that on the social media: Facebook, Instagram, X