In Star Guest Ulla Heikkilä’s Films, the Spotlight Shines on the People
One of this year’s star guests, Ulla Heikkilä, is part of TFF’s programme with a retrospective screening of her work and a carte blanche curated by her. Also known for her feature films (Eden, 2020, and Summer is Crazy, 2025), Heikkilä’s films have been shown around the world at numerous film festivals, and are now coming to silver screens in her very own home town.
Joutomaa (Suomi, 2016)
In her own words, Heikkilä sees film as a vehicle to reflect things that are “instinctual and fundamental”. In her work, this is often reflected through the microcosms of singular people and relationships: the dynamics present in different communities as well as the everyday challenges we all face are presenetd through a lens of poignant humor and empathy. Producer Miia Haavisto describes Heikkilä’s way of telling stories about communities: “There’s always someone or something in the background, slightly outside of everything (…) Still, these films hold a promise of some secret hidden power within these characters, just waiting to burst. When it finally does, everything is finally real in a different way.”
In TFF’s programme, these social situations are explored through facing a difficult friendship break-up of your past in #barewithme (2016), and navigating the interpersonal challenges of a group of kids trying to build their own utopia despite their differences in an abandoned hotel in Wasteland (2016). Heikkilä names physicality, anguish, magic, sanctity and childhood as her favourite elements in film: The last two are present in Golgotha (2016), where ten-year-old Inari makes a deal with God to guarantee that May Day goes well for his family.
Her Carte blanche screening also showcases a more experimental approach to filmmaking. The dance-forward short Lasso (Salla Tykkä, 2000), and Tissi (Milja Viita, 2004), a minute-long black-and-white film about a lactating breast, tell stories without saying a word; whereas Min Börda (Niki Lindroth von Bahr, 2017) explores the hardships of modern life through an animated musical. Directed by her lifelong friend Tiina Ruusuvuori, to Heikkilä the film Untitled (burned rubber on asphalt, 2018) (2019) represents being from Tampere, being in art school, being in film school, and Tampere Film Festival – while having nothing to do with any of these things.
As a director, Heikkilä is perceptive and empathetic. She describes her relationship to film in the introductory text to her Carte blanche: “(…) Film has this ability to go straight to the most fundamental questions. It may not do so intellectually, but on an emotional level it prods at the core experiences of being human. All of the films in this screening reach somewhere deep as well; they grab hold of your heart and squeeze it into a slightly new position.”
Read the full introduction, as well as Miia Haavisto’s introduction to Heikkilä’s retrospective screening:
Heikkilä will also be present for Q&A sessions after her retrospective screenings at TFF.
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