Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy will make dreams come true in September by bringing the most highly-anticipated, awarded, celebrated and buzzworthy films to Helsinki’s most atmospheric cinemas. A handpicked selection of films has already been confirmed for this year’s programme, including landmarks of cinematic history, Cannes-winners and the latest from Love & Anarchy-darling Kelly Reichardt.
A herald of American indie-cinema, Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, Love & Anarchy 2007, Showing Up, Love & Anarchy 2023) is a longtime favourite among Love & Anarchy audiences. Reichardt, known for her serenely visionary narrative voice, returns with The Mastermind, an ironically named crime tale where Josh O’Connor (La Chimera, Challengers) portrays the worst art thief in 1970s Massachusetts.
Award-winning director Tarik Saleh will be visiting Helsinki with the final part of his Cairo trilogy Eagles of the Republic, which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Co-produced by Bufo, the political thriller stars Saleh’s longtime collaborator Fares Fares, while Finnish actor Sherwan Haji can be seen in a supporting role. Before the festival’s industry event Finnish Film Affair kicks off, Saleh will run a Masterclass for actors and directors at Söderlångvik from 18 to 21 September. Saleh will also discuss Eagles of the Republic with Variety reporter Marta Balaga at a Bio Rex festival screening on Sunday, 21 September.
Actor Kristen Stewart’s debut directorial feature The Chronology of Water, which premiered at Cannes, is an ambitious and deeply felt literary adaptation about a young swimmer trying to get away from her difficult past. Winner of the Cannes Un Certain Regard selection, Diego Céspedes’ debut The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo combines drama, subtle magical realism and western stylings. Set in 1980s Chile, the film’s themes of queerness and otherness resonate strongly in the current climate.
Love & Anarchy is known for shining a spotlight on new Asian cinema, and this year’s festival will continue the tradition. Director Bi Gan’s scifi-wonder Resurrection arrives at Love & Anarchy from Cannes, where it won the Special Jury Prize. In this visually breathtaking phantasmagoria, mankind has lost its ability to dream – until a woman undergoing surgery falls into anesthesia-fuelled, endless dreams.
Spotlight: Trailblazers of cinematic history
Chantal Akerman, Mai Zetterling, Lina Wertmüller and Márta Mészáros are masters of filmmaking who broke through in the 1960s and 70s and rewrote the history of cinema. These award-winning and celebrated filmmakers share a fearless approach to discussing social injustices through their modern female characters. Love & Anarchy will be screening films from these giants of European cinema that have rarely been seen in Finnish theatres in the Trailblazers selection, which will be accompanied by a separate Trailblazer Shorts short film screening. The films will be screened as restored DCP copies.
The Trailblazers selection will include a screening of Swept Away… By an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August (1974), from Lina Wertmüller, whose 1973 film Love and Anarchy gave the festival its name. Swept Away… is a class-comedy set by the sunny Mediterranean sea, that subversively weaves together lightness and gravity. Chantal Akerman’s – the director of Jeanne Dielman (1975), number one in Sight & Sound’s 2022 ranking of the best films of all time – radical gem of feminist avantgarde cinema Je tu il elle (1974) will also be screened as part of the selection. Akerman’s allegorical narrative culminates in a 20-minute sex scene between protagonist Julie and her girlfriend. Márta Mészáros’s Berlinale-winner Adoption (1975) is a mesmerising masterwork of social realism that explores a middle-aged woman’s longing for motherhood and has been seen as a sister piece to Jeanne Dielman. From Mai Zetterling, a fearless pioneer of feminist cinema, the selection includes The Girls (1968), a feminist reimagining of a Greek comedy.
The Trailblazer Shorts short film screening will include Chantal Akerman’s Le 15/8 (1973), in which a young Finnish woman (Chris Myllykoski) grows bored in her Parisian apartment. Mai Zetterling’s The War Games (1962), which won the prize for best short film at Venice, sees a quarrel over a toy gun between two young boys escalate into a serious fight. Mészáros’s heartfelt short documentary At the Lőrinc Spinnery (1971) follows the everyday labour of women at a spinning mill.
The 38th Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy in Helsinki 18.–28.9. Early Bird passes on sale until 31.8. The whole programme will be released September 2. Industry event Finnish Film Affair 24.–26.9., Söderlångvik Masterclass with Tarik Saleh 18.–21.9.