Kristallisilmä Oy

This charming and casually reverent work is an authorized single-screen version of an installation by celebrated video artist Ahtila. Amid stunning snow-draped forests, a women’s theatrical group rehearses a stage version of the Annunciation (the director is played by Aki Kaurismäki’s signature actress Kati Outinen), in the process discovering the parallel worlds of humans and animals, and the proximity of the ordinary to the miraculous.

Where is Where? is an experimental film that quarters the screen in order to have four different scenes play simultaneously. It's a meditation on the Algerian war that culminates in a brutal killing.

After EverythingThe film shows a dystopian world where brutality and inhumanity are commonplace and part of everyday routine. The atmosphere of doom is emphasized by the combination of black and white footage, harsh settings and industrial noise music. The powerful story leads to a situation in which brutality is victorious, yet beyond total destruction there is also room for a new beginning.

Love Is a Treasure is a 55-minute film about the world of women who have developed psychoses. It consists of five episodes each telling the story of one woman. The episodes are based research and interviews but the stories and dialogue are fiction, combinations of different elements. —The Cinematic Works of Eija-Liisa Ahtila

Tokyo at the beginning of the 21st century, its inhabitants and artists. An observation and diagnosis of the modern Japanese metropolis: the singularity of unusual creative individuals is merely a response to the majority Japanese society. Even this can appear as an eccentric work of art. So where do the borders lie? A psychologist talks about the autistic way of life burgeoning in the dense population of the country. A noise musician speaks of her inspiration from sado-masochistic bondage as an art form. A programmer specializing in computer games assures us: I can distinguish our world and “the other side”! Why are the robots in Japanese comic books almost always affable and positive characters? Will “love hotels”, the unique designer havens for sexual experiences, become extinct in the future? Photographer Nobuyoshi Araki sees noise as one of the fundamental aspects of Tokyo life.