The revelations from the 36th Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy include festival winners and audience favorites from the world’s top film festivals. All of the films mentioned here will get their Finnish premiere at the HIFF. Dance House Helsinki will join the festival venues with HIFF screenings.

The first film to be revealed from the 36th HIFF line-up is the French documentarist Nicolas Philibert’s ON THE ADAMANT (France, 2023). The winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale paints a warm and honest portrait of the lives of mental-health patients and nurses on board a floating day-care center in Paris.

Another film hailing from Berlin is Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s moving coming-of-age story set in the Basque country summer. 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES (Spain, 2023) brought its 8-year-old star Sofía Otero the top acting award at the festival, ahead of such stars as Jesse Eisenberg and Vicky Krieps.

The most important U.S. film festival Sundance brings us the winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize SCRAPPER (UK, 2023) that has been called a mixture of Ken Loach’s social realism and Wes Anderson’s aesthetic antics. Following in the footsteps of another indie darling Aftersun, this energetic story about complex father-daughter dynamics from debut director Charlotte Regan tells the story of 12-year-old Georgie (Lola Campbell), living by herself on the outskirts of London who one day meets her young father Jason (Triangle of Sadness star Harris Dickinson).

This year’s HIFF brings movie magic to Dance House Helsinki. The HIFF screenings at the venue’s legendary Pannuhalli include top choreographer Akram Khan’s powerful work CREATURE (UK, 2023) with the English National Ballet. Taking inspiration from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, this futuristic techno-industrialist dance movie is directed by the Academy Award winner Asif Kapadia (e.g. Amy, 2015 and Senna, 2010).

Eager for more? Be on the lookout on our social channels, newsletter and website to avoid missing out on future HIFF revelations including festival winners, audience hits and the best of the best of the international movie scene.