The first programme selections push the boundaries of time, reality and storytelling with vampires and animated characters, but also delve into border disputes in the Turkish mountains. Meanwhile, this year’s festival visuals, created by award-winning comic artist Juliana Hyrri, straddle the line between defiance and playfulness. The 39th Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy will take place on 17–27 September. Early Bird -tickets are now available.
Silencio is a period piece with fangs. The Spanish film follows a group of vampire sisters all the way from the plague-ridden 1300s to the era of the AIDS-epidemic and the near future. Monstrosity, disease and marginalised characters are clad in ruffled gowns in this lively reimagining of the vampire movie that deliciously combines camp, politics, and goth aesthetics.
The poetic If I Go Will They Miss Me continues the United States -indie tradition in the spirit of Oscar-winner Moonlight. Planes fly over South Los Angeles skies, under which a 12-year-old boy blends myth and real life. Likewise stretching the confines of the real world is Light Pillar, a Chinese animation that toys with fantasy through its form alone: scenes set in the daily life of a film studio are animated, but ones in virtual reality are live-action.
In the visually audacious black-and-white documentary KitKatClub – Kinks of Berlin, fantasies become reality. The camera breaks barriers between the private and the public by offering viewers an insight into a Berlin sex-club and the lives of its patrons. Latex shines, leather squeaks and whipped cream sprays, but conversations touch upon safety and consent.
Last year’s Palestine-theme continues with Palestine 36, a film that depicts the rebellion that rose against the British forces that occupied the area in 1936–1939. Authorities shut down a screening of the film – Palestine’s submission for the Oscars – in Jerusalem this January, and prohibited showing it in the city altogether. Historical events also inspired the winner of the Berlinale Grand Jury Prize, Salvation. Set in the mountains of Turkey, the drama evolves from depicting a local border dispute and insecure masculinity into a grander examination on the causes of violence.
This year, the visual identity of the festival is designed by Julianna Hyrri, an award-winning comic artist, illustrator and author. The child characters on the festival poster are in motion, with holes in their socks, plasters on their knees and a sharp pendant of friendship hanging from the ribbon that connects them. Their momentum forces colours to bleed outside of the lines and, in places, almost entirely blends away pencil strokes. According to Hyrri, the colour palette of the poster suggests “fierce emotion, vitality and creativity, all things that Love & Anarchy represents to me. As a comic artist, cinema and comics feel like very closely related forms of art to me.”
The 39th Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy will take place in Helsinki on 17–27 September. Early Bird -priced tickets are now on sale: HURMIO (6 tickets 73 €) PARATIISI (12 tickets 134 €) and EUFORIA (20 tickets 200 €). Early Bird -passes are on sale until 31 August. The full festival programme will be revealed on 1 September. Read more and buy festival passes here.
