Welcome to celebrate the art of cinema and faith in a better future – Opening Words of the 2026 Tampere Film Festival

I’m often asked what the theme of the Tampere Film Festival is. It’s a difficult question to answer — partly because I’m so deeply immersed in the programme planning, and partly because our programme is truly a cornucopia.

This year, we present an extensive selection of documentary films from Southeast Asia, retrospectives of Ulla Heikkilä and Rúnar Rúnarsson, archive films, trash cinema, student films, the world’s best short films in competition, new Finnish documentaries… What unites all these diverse screenings is a belief in film as an art form and in the meaningfulness of cinema.

Faith itself is also a fascinating concept. The programme Faith examines faith from both fiction and documentary perspectives. Although Christianity is in close focus, the programme can be understood as addressing faith in a broader sense. While curating the screenings, it was particularly intriguing to encounter archive films that resonate strongly with the present moment. One such film is Armon vuonna (The Year of Mercy, 1974), directed by Lasse Naukkarinen. In his documentary, Naukkarinen challenges, among other things, the role of the Church in Finnish society.

In democratic Western countries, faith and religion have not been the subject of much public debate — at least not until recent years. When elderly men in positions of power speak over others and steer world affairs in destructive directions, it becomes clear that people long for salvation. Heads turn toward those who offer the most soothing answers. Today, the Christian right is a recognized phenomenon influencing the machinery of democratic states.

At the Tampere Film Festival, democracy has been explored in several programmes in recent years, and the Faith theme forms part of this continuum. I like to think that art continues where the methods of science reach their limits: the screenings in the Faith programme are not declarative or literal, but rather perspectives and interpretations — impressions and emotions.

Despite the state of the world, and precisely because of it, I warmly welcome everyone to the Tampere Film Festival to enjoy the art of cinema and the faith in a better future that it can inspire.

So let faith be our theme this year.

Peace and love,

Riina Mikkonen
Executive Director and Programme Planner
Tampere Film Festival