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FESTIVALS Finland

Egoyan, Weerasethakul and Palmer to meet in ‘Midnight Sun’

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Canadian, Oscar-nominated director Atom Egoyan, his Thai colleague Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who won the Golden Palm last year and UK documentarist Tony Palmer are among the official guests at Finland’s 26th Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä, which launched its five-day programme yesterday (June 16).

With the other festival guests, they will almost double the 9,000 population of the small town to be found just 120 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, along with 35,000 reindeer and millions of mosquitoes (the festival takes place a week before mosquito season begins, but the mosquitoes are rarely informed about this, so there are plenty of early arrivals).

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The selection of classic cinema by famous directors, new film gems and silents-cum-orchestra is unspooled round-the-clock at the Lapinsuu theatre, in two tents and at the school, where Peter von Bagh (who has been festival director since the start) leads discussions and interviews with filmmakers each morning in the sports auditorium.

The guest list also includes US cinematographer Michael Chapman, who has worked, among others, with Coppola, Scorsese, Pakula, Ritt; Mali-born African director Souleymane Cissé and Canadian director Denis Coté. German film expert Olaf Möller and the UK’s Sight & Sound Editor-in-Chief Nick James will also be hosting master classes.

In the package of local entries are new films by the Kaurismäki brothers, Aki’s Cannes contender Le Havre [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aki Kaurismäki
film profile
]
, about a shoe-shiner who tries to save a refugee child, and Mika’s Dostoyevsky-inspired Brothers. Both Kaurismäkis are co-founders of the festival and remain members of the selection committee.

This year’s choice of silent films screened to live musical accompaniment contains German directors Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and Piel Jutzi’s Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness (1929). In addition, Sodankylä Forever, Peter von Bagh’s new documentary showing 25 years of Midnight Sun highlights, is currently touring the international festival circuit.

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