Tove | Directed by Ziada Bergroth | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ As the film opens, artist Tove Jansson (Alma Pöysti) is in a Helsinki bomb shelter during the last days of World War II, doodling hippo-like cartoon characters she calls Moomins to entertain the children. These charming characters have their own secret language and hearts of […]
Darling | Cinema Paradiso | July 19 | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ Darling, directed by Danish filmmaker Birgitte Staermose, is set at the fascinating Royal Danish Ballet school and features the dancers as extras. Darling (Danica Curcic) returns to her training ground in Copenhagen from her success in New York with choreographer husband Frans (Gustaf Skarsgard) […]
Tom of Finland | Cinema Paradiso | Sunday July 30 | ★ ★ ★ ½ There is no denying that when I heard about a Tom of Finland biopic my initial thought was this is going to be soft-core pornography, which I was ecstatic and excited about. For all of those that are like me and are […]
The biographical film Tom of Finland, directed by Finnish director Dome Karukoski to tell the story of the artist’s extraordinary life. It is screening in Perth as part of the Scandinavian Film Festival. The film depicts how after suffering from the trauma of WWII, Touko Laaksonen finds no peace at home in Finland, a country where homosexuality is […]
‘Heartstone’ is the debut feature from Icelandic director Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson. The film follows two teenage friends as they take their first steps into adulthood, trying to make sense of who they are, and the world around them. The film features the amazing barren landscape of Iceland, which provides an interesting backdrop to the story that […]
Sammi Blood, directed by Amanda Kernell, may be located in Sweden but it is a tale of colonisation and alienation that is very close to home. Sweden’s indigenous population, the Samis (or Lapps), were nomadic reindeer herders and weren’t given any rights until the 1990s. Their children were sent to residential schools where they were […]
The hit of last year’s Scandinavian Film Festival was ‘The Keeper of Lost Causes’ and this film follows on from that. The Nordic noir thriller sees dedicated detective Carl Morck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his colleague, the Syria-born Assad (Fares Fares) chasing up leads on cold cases in the basement of the Copenhagen Police Station. […]
