The Helsinki Intl. Film Festival – Love & Anarchy kicks off its 38th edition Thursday with change in the air, with long-time artistic director and festival co-founder Pekka Lanerva announcing this week that he’s stepping down from the operational side of the popular Finnish event, and incoming executive director Pauliina Ståhlberg preparing to oversee her first edition since assuming the post last fall.
Speaking to Variety ahead of opening night, Ståhlberg says that the transition — which will see festival veteran Outi Rehn take on the role of head of programming — doesn’t represent a “big shift” from previous editions, so much as the arrival of “a new generation and a new way of collaborative working.”
“Change is always an opportunity to do things in a different, more modern way,” she says, noting how the creation of a new four-person programming team allows for “more different voices and more different ways of seeing the world.”
The festival opens Sept. 18 with Joachim Trier’s Cannes prizewinner “Sentimental Value” and closes Sept. 28 with Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning “It Was Just an Accident.” Highlights include Mascha Schilinski’s Cannes sensation “Sound of Falling,” Oliver Laxe’s “Sirât” — a Jury Prize winner on the Croisette — and Hafsia Herzi’s Queer Palm winner “The Little Sister.”
Also screening will be Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” and Joshua Oppenheimer’s post-apocalyptic musical “The End,” starring Tilda Swinton, as well as Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason’s “The Love That Remains,” anchoring the popular Nordic Gems sidebar.
Alongside such festival favorites are several provocative programming strands looking to highlight hot-button issues of the day. Among them are the Fight the Power series, which showcases films of rebellion, and the Free Palestine series, which festival organizers say “shines a light on things that can no longer go unseen.” It includes Sepideh Farsi’s heartrending documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” about 25-year-old Gaza photojournalist Fatma Hassona, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike, and Areeb Zuaiter’s DOC NYC prizewinner “Yalla Parkour.”
Ståhlberg points to such programming choices as evidence of the “huge responsibility” her team feels in curating a selection of films for Helsinki audiences, and proof of how the festival — and filmmakers as a whole — “can be on the side of the good guys.”
“We actually can make the world a better place through film, and through Love & Anarchy, by choosing what films we show at our festival to raise voices from Palestine and other [places]…to broaden people’s horizons and have other voices heard,” she says.
Like many members of the Finnish film community, Ståhlberg has a long-running love affair with the Helsinki Intl. Film Festival, and in her first year she’s already determined to expand its reach.
“I’ve been going to the festival since I was at [university],” she says. “The Love and Anarchy festival is the highlight of autumn in Helsinki for the 60,000 people who come and watch our screenings. I want to bring in more of the younger generation as well, and also open it up to the suburbs of Helsinki,” where many members of the city’s immigrant communities have little access to cinema.
The goal, she says, is to make the festival “more accessible to everyone,” which is why Ståhlberg also hopes to expand the popular Pulpettikino educational program. The initiative offers free screenings to thousands of Helsinki schoolchildren during the festival each year, with Ståhlberg saying she’d like to double its scope to reach up to 20,000 children in the coming years.
Ståhlberg, who assumed the role of executive director after serving for four years as the director of the Finnish Institute in Madrid, brings to the position a long and highly regarded career in the cultural sector. She’s served as the director of the Finnish Institute in the U.K. and Ireland and built a laudable resume as a producer and journalist, most notably at the Finnish Broadcasting Company. She is perhaps best known for producing the Nordic Noir crime series “Deadwind,” which was a global hit on Netflix.
She takes over at a time of growing unease in the Finnish screen industries, which have faced mounting cutbacks in recent years from the country’s rightwing government. Next week Parliament will vote on a measure to drastically reduce funding to the Finnish Film Foundation, with Ståhlberg estimating that such cuts could halve film and television production in the country. She herself plans to appear before the government to voice her support for the cultural sector.
“We have to fight the power, which is one of our themes at Love & Anarchy,” Ståhlberg says. “Like everywhere, money to culture and to different voices is being cut. With the rise of the ultra-conservatives all across the world — or at least in Western democracies — it’s frightening, and we really have to do something about it together.”
That spirit of collaboration remains the driving force behind Finnish Film Affair, the annual industry event running parallel to the Helsinki festival, which takes place Sept. 24 – 26. Under the stewardship of incoming industry head Lydia Taylerson, the event features a loaded line-up of talks, workshops and masterclasses, as well as a showcase presenting 45 new projects from Finland, the Nordics and further afield. Among them are works of fiction, documentary and series from both emerging and established filmmakers.
Ståhlberg points to the event, which is one of the leading industry confabs in the Nordics, as a sign of how filmmakers from the region remain committed to collaboration — both with neighboring countries and beyond — while proving there’s strength in numbers for their small-scale industries.
“I think co-production and co-funding are key right now for our industry,” she says. “The Nordics and the Baltics, we’re so small. We need to work together.”
The Helsinki Intl. Film Festival – Love & Anarchy runs Sept. 18 – 28.
