ELO Film School Helsinki graduate and Nordic Talents winner Kaisa El Ramly is finally filming her debut feature. The award-winning project, originally titled Scenes from a Dying Town, has been renamed Getaways & Dreams after several rewrites, and enters production today, 14 June. Filming is taking place on a road in the eastern part of Finland, near the Russian border.

Getaways & Dreams is a story about encounters, collisions and awakenings, taking place one summer’s day, on a road and its nearby surroundings. Through an original, non-linear narrative mixing realism and fantasy, drama and comedy, El Ramly ponders life’s inevitability in its many different guises. We will follow nine characters in their cars, as well as a dog on the loose, plus a hitch-hiker. All are struggling with their own challenging life situations. But when forced to face their own fears, they appreciate the value and strength of their own limited existence. The main cast includes actors Erja Manto, Ingela Olsson, Aliisa Pulkkinen, Erkki Saarela and Robert Enckell.

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“From a young age, I’ve had a fear of death – due to various losses in my family – and I’ve tried, for many years, to understand why. This film is an attempt to tackle both this fear and the notion of being an outsider, not fitting in,” El Ramly told nordiskfilmogtvfond.com, the first outlet to report the news.

Getaways & Dreams will be released in late 2023. It is being produced by Klaus Heydemann for Finland’s Inland Film Company, in co-production with Sweden’s Läsk. It also received backing from the Finnish Film Foundation, YLE and the Nordisk Film & TV Fond. Aurora Studios is in charge of its domestic theatrical release, whilst Folkets Bio will handle the Swedish one.