Finnish films with english subtitles



Heartbeats (Kohtaamisia 2010)

Director: Saara Cantell
Script: Saara Cantell Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.
Martta has a secret she won´t reveal to her family. Noora tries to find her wings and Meri learns that you should be careful what you wish for. Olga and Fardusa are looking chance for a better future far away from home, while Emmi looses her chances by always choosing wrong. And Anu faces her past on a supermarket parking lot. Still every one of them comes to realize, that one single encounter can change the course of their lives. Heartbeats is among the most highly regarded among the latest Finnish films. The visual concept is based on the hand-held camera, long takes, medium shots, a sense of being based on available light.


Playground (Pihalla 2009)

Director: Toni Laine
Script: Petja Peltomaa ja Sanna Reinumägi

Laura is a German wife and mother who moves to Finland because her husband gets a job there. At first everything is very difficult, her husband constantly working, Laura unable to find friends and the November city not showing its best side. By accident , Laura is thought to be a single mother, which allows her to get to know new friends and become acquainted with Tero who runs a music session for children at the local playground. Laura ends up having an affair with Tero and the deeper she gets into the affair, Laura comes to like her new hometown more and more. When spring arrives and its time for her to move away, Laura´s life has changed in many ways.


Ricky Rapper and the Bicycle Thief (Risto Räppääjä ja polkupyörävaras 2010)

Director: Mari Rantasila
Script: Sinikka Nopola ja Tiina Nopola

Ricky Rapper´s adventures continue in a fabulous new musical comedy.

Ricky Rapper and the Bicycle Thief is a touching and action-packed musical comedy, which tells a totally new story of Ricky´s adventures. Serena Rapper and Lennart Lindberg decide to go on a vacation and Fanny Freezer comes to take care of Ricky and Nelly Noodlehead. Ricky gets a fancy new bike in consolation. Unfortunately, the new bike disappears inexplicably. This launches a wild adventure in which all key characters mysteriously cross paths. And what is the role of Bertil and Robert Rosenbögel and a hospital headed by odd behaving doctors in all this?


Thomas (Thomas 2009)

Director: Miika Soini
Script: Miika Soini In the autumn of his life, Thomas lives a simple and isolated life in his below-street-level apartment accompanied by a radio, a chess board and a photo of his wife. He does not venture outside very often, and when he does, the outside world reminds him of his old age, loneliness and his past which he would not like to remember. His life feels like a never-ending story, and to make it whole, Thomas has to face his past. "I am old, and life is long."


Pudana Last of The Line (Sukunsa viimeinen 2010)

Director: Markku Lehmuskallio, Anastasia Lapsui
Script: Markku Lehmuskallio, Anastasia Lapsui Young nenets-girl Neko is taken against her will from her family´s tepee to a boarding school in a Russian village. For the first time in her life Neko finds herself surrounded by a foreign language and culture, and rebels against the attempts to turn her into Russian. Bullied by her schoolmates and pressured by the teachers, Neko decides to run away and return to her family. She talks her fellow nenets boy Parasi from the school into fleeing with her. The children´s flight in the icy forests and tundra is short-lived and the return to the school and their new Russian life inevitable.

The story is told through the memories of Neko. Now grown up she´s concious of all the good the school gave her. But something esential has changed for good; Neko - the last of her kind - has been alienated from her extincting heritage for good.


Under the North Star (Täällä Pohjantähden alla 2009)

Director: Timo Koivusalo
Script: Timo Koivusalo Akseli Koskela is the son of a parsonage crofter who, when he has grown up, finds it impossible to submit to the role of a faithful and humble servant required of him by the conservative upper class. Unlike previous generations who had no other alternative, Akseli begins dreaming of freedom and the right to his own lands, fuelled by the new and stirring ideologies of the time. The uncertainty of life strikes with force, however, as the parsonage reclaims most of the fields that Akseli´s father has cleared out of raw marshland. The grim and irreconcilable bitterness caused by this makes Akseli take an interest in social issues. He joins the local Workers´ Association, which is headed by the village tailor Halme. Halme´s moderate and pacifist views don´t satisfy Akseli for long, and he joins the Red Guard, whose purpose is to claim by force that which is not given to the working class by peace: the right to the fruits of their own labour.

In 1918, Finland´s bitter and bloody Civil War divides the people in two. Focused and strong-willed, Akseli is promoted to the position of company commander and, after the Reds´ devastating defeat, is put in charge of a hopeless mission: leading a ragged refugee caravan, fleeing the victors´ revenge, across the border to safety.


What Became of Us ( Mitä meistä tuli 2009)

Director: Miika Ullakko
Script: Miika Ullakko

Have you ever wondered how your old schoolmates are? Perhaps the guy next to you, who is doing time in jail at the moment, still thinks you are his best and only friend. Perhaps your first crush might've been interested in you all these years but was too afraid to tell you that. Perhaps, if it were not too late already, the bullied one would've done everything differently.
What became of us is a film about class reunion. It's a film about three things that have forced childhood friends to face each other and their common past once again, despite the consequences: fear, love and the debt of gratitude.
The film has already entertained thousands of people at film festivals all over the world: Shanghai, Ireland, Germany, France, South Africa and Finland.


On thin ice (Kukkulan kuningas 2009)

Director and script: Alli Haapasalo

It´s Christmas Eve in Helsinki. Young taxi driver Samu is working to escape a family Christmas with his fiancé and baby. At the airport Samu picks up a fascinating customer: a Finnish mercenary Hans, who has returned to Helsinki after an absence of 20 years. Hans hires Samu to go on a mission with him: to find Laura, the daughter of his recently deceased best friend and brother in arms. The quest to find Laura leads the men around the wintery city, to places and people from Hans´s past. As Samu watches Hans confront his past, he begins to open his eyes to his own future. When the eventful mission reaches its end, both of the men´s lives are forever changed.