HIFF – Love & Anarchy Association
The Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy association is the pioneer of Finnish film culture with the mission to celebrate the art of cinema – and to make the world a better place with some love and anarchy. Founded in 1991, the association works year-round.
The main event organised by the association is Love & Anarchy, the largest film festival in Finland. The Finnish Film Affair (FFA) is HIFF – Love & Anarchy’s industry event. Held alongside the festival, the FFA offers its attending industry professionals a showcase of Finnish films and a networking platform. Nordic Flair was launched in 2017 as the talent sidebar of the FFA.
The Pulpettikino film literacy initiative offers local schools the chance to experience festival atmosphere and high quality films free of charge during HIFF. In 2025, we also organised the first edition of the event series Love & Anarchy Presents.
Helsinki International Film Festival is supported by the Finnish Film Foundation, the City of Helsinki and the European Union’s Creative Europe MEDIA programme.
History
Founded in 1988, the Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy has been held annually ever since. The aim of Finland’s biggest film festival is to promote the artistry of filmmaking alongside inventive, controversial and visually stunning new films. The festival also seeks to screen films that would otherwise not be seen in Finnish theatres.
The festival programme consists of new films from well-known filmmakers and fresh talents alike. In its first few years the programme was heavily focused on Japanese and Hong Kong films. Since then, the programme has evolved; Asian films still play a part but films from all other continents feature too. The ideological masters of the festival aren’t too tough to pick out – Lina Wertmüller (Love and Anarchy, 1973), Wong Kar-wai, Spike Lee, Claire Denis, Peter Greenaway, Gaspar Noé, Kelly Reichardt, John Woo, David Cronenberg, Takeshi Kitano, Todd Solondz, Takashi Miike and Hayao Miyazaki are all names that pop up in the festival programme year and decade after another.
During its over 35-year lifespan, the Helsinki International Film Festival has expanded from two theatres to 18 screens and established itself as an 11-day homage to cinema. In 1988 the festival screened 26 films. In 2018 HIFF launched its R&A Shorts National Competition. In 2023, the programme consisted of 150 feature films and 160 short films. The 2024 festival gathered over 55 000 visitors.
Each year HIFF invites important filmmakers to speak about their work and meet both audiences and industry professionals. In past years the festival has had the honour of welcoming guests such as Spike Lee, Danny Boyle, Tilda Swinton, Naoko Ogigami, Jan Kounen, Aleksandr Sokurov, Baz Luhrmann, Philip Ridley, Nicolas Winding Refn, Jacques Audiard, Lucile Hadžihalilović, Terence Davies and Cristian Mungiu.
The festival is supported by the Finnish Film Foundation, the City of Helsinki and the European Union’s Creative Europe MEDIA programme.
Mission, values and vision
Mission
We celebrate the art of film and strive to make the world a better place with love and anarchy.
Values
Kindness
Kindness is our way of approaching the world. We treat with kindness our audience, colleagues, partners, and filmmakers. We invest in work wellbeing. To us, kindness means positivity, equality, environmental awareness, and caring beyond our species.
Courage
For us, courage means taking artistic risks, trusting the open-mindedness of our audience and daring to fail and learn. It signifies openness, and the boldness to take a stand. It is venturing into the inspiration of new ways of expression, and it means daring to get excited about new thoughts and questions. We move and motivate others reliably, even beyond our comfort zone.
Multiplicity of voices
Having many voices heard has been at the core of our activities from the very beginning. It means the desire to present to the audience a wide diversity of films from as many diverse filmmakers from around the world as possible. It is the endeavour to bring forward multiple perspectives in our curatorial work, within our work community and with our networks. It is our commitment to perform feminist and antiracist work. We strive to make our activities as inviting and inclusive as possible to everyone.
Ambition
For us, ambition is the desire to always perform better. We embrace challenges without fear, and we take pride in our professionalism. We are committed to creating a more equitable and ecologically sustainable film industry.