Jussi-Winning "Kerron Sinulle Kaiken" ("Open Up to Me") debuts at LGBTQ Frameline Film Fest in SF Weds, 6/25 at 9:15 pm at Castro Theatre -- Advanced Tix Recommended - Director Simo Halinen in Attendance

Open Up to Me
Kerron Sinulle Kaiken

DIRECTOR: Simo Halinen

Purchase Online

• Wednesday, June 25, 9:15 PM
  Castro Theatre
  Buy Tickets
  

Expected to attend: Director Simo Halinen

Since her transition from man to woman, Maarit lives a life apart from other people—distant from her estranged wife and daughter and marooned in a dead-end cleaning job far beneath what her education merits. When by chance she meets a handsome, married soccer coach named Sami, her carefully constructed solitude begins to crumble.

Open Up to Me Trailer from Corinth Films on Vimeo,  also available at http://vimeo.com/84790702

While Maarit is sure of herself and her new life, Sami may not be able to handle what society might think of her as a transgender woman. Complicating matters are Sami’s wife, Julia; Teo, a teenage soccer player he coaches; and Maarit’s daughter, Pinja—all of whom have their own agendas. Maarit finds herself at the center of a web of relationships in which everyone is heartbreakingly and fallibly human. At the same time, the ghost of her old life threatens to endanger the precarious balance of her new one.
Part psychodrama and part coming-of-age tale, Open Up to Me is spare and unfussy. It features superb acting from Leea Klemola, who won a Jussi (Finland’s highest film award) for her work in the lead role. As Maarit, she equally embodies vulnerability and determination as a woman who is anxious for her life to finally begin.

— Mordecai Stayton

August 2 at 10 p.m., KQED / PBS Channel 9 will show "Steam of Life" on its POV show (the ritual of men's Finnish Sauna)

PBS to Show Finnish Film PBS will show the film Steam of Life on its POV program on August 2 at 10 p.m., KQED (Channel 9).

Here is a description of the film: "From a land of long, dark winters comes Steam of Life, a moody, comic and moving study of Finnish men as framed by the national obsession with the sauna. There, they come together to sweat out not only the grime of contemporary life, but also their grief, hopes, joys and memories. Beautifully and hauntingly shot, the acclaimed film provides a surprising glimpse into the lives of Finnish men and a remarkable depiction of the troubled and often reticent hearts of contemporary Western men. (60 minutes)"

Learn More, or view the film via live streaming starting August 3 at http://www.pbs.org/pov/steamoflife/

Watch the full episode. See more POV.

UC Berkeley Finnish Studies Presents Film - Tuesday 4/19 at 5:30pm - Äideistä Parhain (Mother of Mine, 2005)

The Department of Scandinavian and the Finnish Studies Program at UC Berkeley are pleased to present the final Spring 2011 Finnish Film Series Screening:

Äideistä Parhain ("Mother of Mine")
111 mins, in Finnish with English subtitles
Directed by Klaus Härö, 2005

Tuesday 4/19 at 5:30pm
UC Berkeley Campus
Dwinelle B-4*

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7-AM1oE_uk

We close the season with the jewel in the crown of the BLC´s Finnish movies, Äideistä Parhain (literally meaning "The Best Of All Mothers").

A touching must-see, the film tells a story of a little boy named Eero, one of the 70,000 Finnish children evacuated from Finland during World War II and relocated in neutral Sweden. Eero´s father dies in the war and his broken mother sends her son away in order to protect him. Eero ends up in a rural village in Sweden with foster parents Hjalmar and Signe but the adaptation isn’t easy for anyone.

In a beautiful way, the movie addresses the relationship between the mother(s) and the son, the meaning of family as well as the nature of loss.

Plus, we'll even bring some Easter Snacks!

Tervetuloa!

The UC Berkeley Finnish Studies Film Screening Group