Midnight Sun Film Festival draws over 26,000 fans
This year’s Midnight Sun Film Festival, at Sodankylä, in Finnish Lapland, wrapped on Sunday. The 27th edition of the festival presented its audiences with a spectacular array of talented directors and actors.
Between the 13th and 17th there were 128 screenings in total of 96 feature films and almost 20 short movies. Movies were shown around the clock in four different screening venues and more than 26 000 people visited the festival’s various events.
The most popular screenings, in addition to accompanied silent films, were those of Summer with Monika, The ’Burbs, Watermark, The Turin Horse, Miss Blue Jeans, Les Girls, Afterglow, Romu-Mattila ja kaunis nainen, Conversations Between Men, Involuntary and Avalon.
The festival program was built around the international top talent that came to Sodankylä in order to present their work. This time there were two enchanting actresses among the festival guests: Taina Elg, Finland’s only Hollywood star, and Harriet Andersson, who worked extensively with Ingmar Bergman. This year’s director guests were American cult director Alan Rudolph, Béla Tarr from Hungary, Gremlins director Joe Dante, Roberto Areias from Portugal and Ruben Östlund and Axel Petersén from Sweden.
Finnish films also attracted festival-goers. Among the Finnish guests at the festival were Rax Rinnekangas (Watermark, Journey to Eden), Anssi Mänttäri and Kari Väänänen (Saunavieras), Ilkka Heiskanen (Silence), Jarmo Lampela, Rea Mauranen and Juha Kukkonen (Conversations Between Men), Ville Virtanen (Love and Other Troubles), Juho Kuosmanen (Romu-Mattila ja kaunis nainen) and Matti Kinnunen (Miss Blue Jeans).
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