The twin sisters Helena and Irene are born in Helsinki during World War II. A few months later their mother, Sirkka, leaves the girls in the care of their grandmother, an old communist, and runs away with a German soldier. Their life under the protection of their grandmother and the teachings of communism ends first with the death of Stalin, then with that of their grandmother. The girls are eight years old when they are put in an orphanage. Their mother shows up at the orphanage in the company of Ramon, a Spanish trapeze artist. They are on a talent search for a German circus. Ramon trains the reluctant Irene during circus tours in Central Europe. She becomes the trapeze star of the circus. The hard work soon exhausts Irene and she falls from height, as if on purpose. Helena has secretly learned the art of fire-eating. Now she is burdened with both her mother and her sister. The violent life, however, separates the three from each other. In the present-day Helsinki the middle-aged...

Ateş Yutan

Young cleaning woman Kukka-Maaria comes to town and gets an awesome rental apartment. In exchange of that, however, her landlord gradually subjects her to be his and his friends' sexual partner.

Punainen huone

Juhani Haavisto returns to his childhood home from the seas and is confronted by his wheelchair-bound, demented father Eino and the traumas of sexual abuse and violence he experienced as a child.

Our Father…

Eevi's life isn't going the way she would want it to, so she runs away, leaving destruction in her wake. No one will ever say no to her again.

The Collector

This charming and casually reverent work is an authorized single-screen version of an installation by celebrated video artist Ahtila. Amid stunning snow-draped forests, a women’s theatrical group rehearses a stage version of the Annunciation (the director is played by Aki Kaurismäki’s signature actress Kati Outinen), in the process discovering the parallel worlds of humans and animals, and the proximity of the ordinary to the miraculous.