Tampere Film Festival’s programme released

The Tampere International Film Festival will be held for the 54th time from 6 to 10 March. The five-day event once again gathers film lovers and industry professionals together in Tampere – during the festival week, there are more than a hundred film screenings at Finnkino Cine Atlas and Arthouse Cinema Niagara. In addition to film screenings, there are also plenty of events open to the general public and aimed at professionals in the film industry.

The festival, which focuses on short films, shows short films in both National and International Competition series, as well as a versatile theme programme. In addition, the programme presents feature-length documents. The main themes in the 2024 programme include the previously announced Democracy in Danger, which reflects on the state of democracy in Finland and the world, and Forest, which examines the many dimensions of the forest in the midst of the capitalist forest debate. In connection with both themes, open panel discussions will also be organized, where the panelists will be, for example, film directors and researchers from the Tampere University.

Check out the whole programme. 

Short films from the South Caucasus region

In the programme, it is customary to highlight films from different parts of the world, and this year, especially films from the countries of the South Caucasus have been selected for the programme. Screenings South Caucasus 1 and 2 curated by Riina Mikkonen, executive director of the film festival, offer different windows to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. During the last century, the area has served as a stage for conflicts, but there is also resistance and hope. The films in the screenings contain versatile storytelling, and they give a touch surface to different lives, historical events and cultural phenomena.

As part of the theme, the screening Chai Khana: Female Voices of the Caucasus will be shown, where the spotlight is especially on the women of the region and their experiences. Chai Khana is a multimedia platform operating in the South Caucasus region, which strives with its work to raise the voices that are often ignored by the mainstream media. The South Caucasus screenings continue the theme of social influence and democracy, which is strongly visible in the festival’s programme.

A celebration of animation – starring Iiti Yli-Harja

The programme also shows a lot of animation. AniDocs 1: Society and AniDocs 2: Personal tell stories about humanity, history and the search for identity. The screenings are assembled from documentaries that have been made using different ways of animation. Also, the animation education of Turku University of Applied Sciences’ Academy of Arts is celebrating its 30th anniversary at the Tampere Film Festival with two screenings. The screenings present a diverse range of student films from the school over the years.

Award-winning film director and musician Iiti Yli-Harja, who has become one of Finland’s most prominent animation directors and creators of short films, will be the star of this year’s Retrospective and Carte Blanche screenings. The retrospective screening covers Yli-Harja’s productions from the 2016 film To Die in a Dream all the way to last year’s film I Smell a Mouse (2023). The screening also includes the winner of the Jussi award for the best short film, All My Mom’s Phone Calls (2021), and Blush – An Extraordinary Voyage (2022), which won the Risto Jarva Prize at the Tampere Film Festival.

The Carte Blanche screening includes puppet animation, pixilation and video art. According to Yli-Harja, the screening celebrates randomness, joy and curiosity in filmmaking: “The films in the screening remind us that filmmaking can be the most fun possible thing to do, to wonder and experiment”.

Gems from the archives and special screenings

This time, Kai Oka’s decades-forgotten experimental films from the archives will be brought to the big screen in the screening Lost Reels, as well as gems from the history of Manserock and advertisements collected by the National Audiovisual Institute. Finnish Film Archive 1: Manserock Phenomenon offers an audiovisual cross-section of the most central bands and background influencers of the phenomenon. Finnish Film Archive 2: The best of Finnish Commercial Films goes through the history of Finnish commercial film in the years 1935–2000. Both winning works awarded in industry competitions and, more generally, commercial films that have remained in the nation’s memory have been selected for the screening.

Raimo “Rake” Silius’ traditional Rake Special is dedicated to legendary film directors: Matti Kassila (1924–2018), Risto Jarva (1934–1977), Jaakko Pakkasvirta (1934–2018) and Antti Peippo (1934–1989). Among other things, the screening will include the half-hour Tampere episode of Kassila’s feature documentary The Faces of Three Cities (1962), which, according to Silius, is “one of the most wonderful Tampere short films”.

The roar of history can also be experienced in the Tampere Film Festival and Yle Teema’s collaborative screening Childhood in the South Seas, which shows interconnected documentary films, Monica in the South Seas (2023) directed by Mika Taanila and Sami van Ingen and Moana with Sound (1926, 1981) by Robert, Frances and Monica Flaherty.

Other interesting special screenings are, for example, Sámi Films in Focus, which brings out Sámi filmmakers and Sámi stories, and Triangle of Hope – Silent Trilogy by Juho Kuosmanen, performed in Tampere Cathedral accompanied by organist Esa Toivola, which will feature short films Romu-Mattila and a beautiful woman (2012), Salaviinanpolttajat (2017) and A Distant Planet (2023) by Juho Kuosmanen.

For kids

There are free Minikino screenings for the youngest in the family: Minikino 1 is suitable for kids aged around 3 years and older, and Minikino 2 is suitable for preschoolers and older viewers, as it brings slightly longer and more exciting stories to the screen. In addition, Cinema Concert for Kids is a free screening accompanied by film music composer Emil Sana.

Check out the festival’s screenings and events.

Series Cards and tickets for individual screenings are on sale on the Lippu.fi online store and ticket outlets. The festival’s own ticket outlets will open on 4 March. More information about tickets on the Tickets page of our website.

Most of the competition films can also be viewed online on the Festhome TV service from 6 to 17 March. More information on the Online Screenings page of our website.