Midnight Sun to shine on Elg, Andersson and Tarr

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

14/05/2012 - Two Nordic actors who both started their careers in the 1950s - Finland's only Hollywood actress Taina Elg, and Swedish actress Harriet Andersson (pictured) - will be in focus at the 27th Midnight Sun Film Festival , which takes place in Sodankylä, Finnish Lapland, between June 13-17.

Discovered by Hollywood while a dancer at Sadler's Wells in London, Elg signed a seven-year contract with MGM Studios, won Golden Globes for Best Foreign Female Newcomer (Gaby - 1956) and for Best Actress (Les Girls - 1957). Elg performed with Gene Kelly, Lana Turner, Glenn Ford and Leslie Caron and later in non-American films, on stage and television.

Andersson, whom Swedish director Ingmar Bergman considered "a genius of film work", first played in his Summer with Monika (1953), but their collaboration lasted through the 1970s, to include key works such as Through A Glass Darkly (1961) and Cries And Whispers (1973). She has also performed in films by Jörn Donner, Sidney Lumet, Maj Zetterling and Lars von Trier.

Also on festival director Peter von Bagh's guest list are Hungarian director Béla Tarr, US cult director Alan Rudolph, Swedish directors Ruben Östlund, Axel Petersén, Portugese director Rodrigo Areias, and a whole contingency of Finnish film-makers.

Usually doubling the 9,000 population of the little town 120 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle (with 35,000 reindeer and millions of mosquitoes), the programme unspools round-the-clock at the Lapinsuu theatre, in two tents and at the local school. To the selection of classic cinema by famous directors, new film pearls from worldwide, silents-cum-orchestra, special screenings and the best Finnish titles from last season, von Bagh has also added an extensive series of films about trains.