2001

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Mika Taanila: Pori

Tales of the Cities

Tampere Film Festival's series of city films takes the audience to a journey through the metropolises of four continents, and to Pori, a small coastal town in Finland. The series consists of Ian Helliwell's (UK) Cities in Motion-series and a special screening of accompanied films. The special screening features Mika Taanila's Pori, a triptych with a live soundtrack by Circle, and Walther Ruttmann's Berlin - Symphony of a Great City, which is accompanied live by the students of the Theatre Academy Department of Light and Sound Design, conducted by Jone Takamäki.

A Living City Tales of the Cities

Cities in Motion features two screenings of experimental and documentary city films, which are compiled by Ian Helliwell. Soundtracks of the City offers short super 8mm films, to which Ian Helliwell has commissioned soundtracks from the pioneers of new electronic music. Featured artists include Op:l Bastards, Ektroverde, Tele:funken, Raum and Kaleidophon. Among the locales featured are Exotic Nippon, Carnival In Rio, 100mph Through London Streets and Las Vegas.

In City Visions city documentaries and experimental films meet each other again. These films dating from 1947 to 2001 include D. A. Pennebaker's Daybreak Express (1953) and Ian Hugo's Jazz of Lights (1954), which feature the streets of New York, the poet Anaïs Nin and the composer Moondog. Soundtrack credits go to Duke Ellington, Modern Jazz Quartet and to various makers of electronic music from the 1950's to the 1990's.

Walther Ruttmann's Berlin - Symphony of a Great City (1927) features a new live soundtrack by the students of Light and Sound Design, who are conducted by Jone Takamäki. The film presents a day in the life of a city. It begins with tranquil shots of an awakening city, picking up speed as the city churns on and ends in chaos. The dramaturgy of this documentary is based on the intermixing of peace and turmoil. This film captures the fierce and gruff spirit of a city in a very exceptional and often poetic way. Pori is Mika Taanila's homage to the city of Pori. This triptych features a live soundtrack by Circle, a band from Pori. The triptych consists of three 16mm films, which are projected side by side. The films capture the town from its sewers to its beaches, without forgetting anything in between.

Cities in Motion >>

Film 1999

Wherever Seppo Renvall goes, his camera follows. "The pictures are a part of my diary, and I take some every now and then. One picture per day, that is the only limit."

Renvall's Film 1999 is the first Finnish experimental full-length feature film. The film is pure stream of consciousness, which is accompanied by the uplifting music of two Manchester DJs. Film 1999 has no plot, so, following the tradition of structuralist films, one can concentrate on enjoying the images, sound and form.

The screening of Film 1999 at Tullikamari is expected to be one of the best parties of the festival. DJ group Mashjam will be present to accompany the film with a live DJ show. Knowing Renvall, the stage show may feature something totally unexpected.

TV-dinner program
a homage to Finnish abstract cinema

In 1989, a group of young artists set up Helsingin Elokuvapaja ry in the former Nokia Cable Factory. Sami van Ingen, Seppo Renvall and Alli Savolainen were the most prominent activists at the time of the Co-op's creation. Marjatta Oja, Mikko Maasalo, Denise Ziegler and Juha van Ingen joined them slightly later on. Within the space of a few years, their collective enthusiasm led to the eruption of an astonishing number of works on film and video, by artists that devotees of traditional film had never heard of. The concrete feel for the film/video material itself, its language and conventions was the prime motivator in working.

Many of the Film-makers' Co-op's works represented a kind of neo-primitivism. They were technically distorted, frequently black-and-white and silent, self-developed by hand and left virtually as they were, as ready-made films edited in the camera. Another hallmark of these formalist works was the principle: one idea per film. Sami van Ingen's Kaikki Suomemme poliisit (All The Policemen in Finland, 1987) is a conceptual idea film, which comments on Reagan's visit to Helsinki 1987. Each policeman is represented by one hole in emulsion . Juha van Ingen's (Dis)integrator (1992) and Zoom (1996) or Seppo Renvall's -"- (1996) quite simply stick to a pre-set conceptual idea for a game or for anti-illusionist automation, ruling out any 'creative' or expressive input by their author. All that remains is the tone, form and potential for harmony of the (film/video) material.

The pieces by Mikko Maasalo and Anton Nikkilä feature music tracks by the artists' themselves, and are radical attempts to expand the boundaries of the 1990's promo clip tradition. Denise Ziegler's As Seen On Television (1996) and Liisa Lounila's flicker film Road Movie (1999), on the other hand, can be viewed as clever parodies of narrative cinema.

In terms of Finnish film, Ilppo Pohjola has taken the systematic analysis of structure furthest with his latest work Routemaster (2000). This film is a kindred piece to Asphalto (1998) with its themes of demolition-deconstruction-destruction. Nevertheless, Routemaster takes its maker even further - to the apex of the semiotic trajectory. It really is no longer possible to distinguish between form and content; the work's suggestive, circular loop has become its entire content. The grainy film surface, the movement of the camera and the repeated optical manipulation, together with a disturbing noisescape, form a subtle and fragile magical circle, which in rare fashion liberates viewers from thoughts of 'meanings' or 'story'.

Mika Taanila
translated by Mike Garner

Structuralist film & video in Finland 1987-2000 >>

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