Jörn Donner

The Dinosaur

Acclaimed Finnish director Rauni Mollberg made several scandalous yet widely appreciated films. Former co-worker Veikko Aaltonen’s eye-opening documentary The Dinosaur looks at the relentless, often disturbing directing techniques behind Mollberg’s art and success.

Donner - Private

Jörn Donner’s entire production can be considered as a self-portrait, a life-spanning performance. Whilst others have painted one image or another of Donner, John Webster’s interpretation differs in that it pulls most of its material from Donner’s last-intended interview in December 2019, and an immense never-before-seen collection of photographs from albums simply labelled “Donner – Privat”. As a result, the film morphs into an epilogue of sorts, of Donner’s life story.

En film om Jörn Donner

Known for his sharp tongue and controversial statements, Jörn Donner has been an important cultural personality in Sweden and Finland since the fifties. Author, film director, film producer, journalist, critic and politician. Jörn Donner is known for producing Fanny and Alexander and received an Oscar for it. But he has also been known for being bellicose and naturally he fights with the filmmakers Alberto Herskovits and Olavi Linna as they try to film him. He is especially cantankerous when they ask him to do something in front of the camera that he finds inane. He doesn’t want to prostitute himself anymore, he wants to talk! This desire provides a key to this quick-witted man’s incessant restlessness and his quarrels stand as a backdrop that facilitate the dialog Donner wants to have.

Void

Eero’s career as an author is spiraling down: he just can’t get started with his new novel. The ambitious actor Pihla is about to get her international break. Neither of them is willing to sacrifice their career even though their relationship is doing worse than ever. Void is a comedy-drama about the price of success and the agony of failure, and about situations where your partner just doesn’t get it.

The Memory of Ingmar Bergman

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Ingmar Bergman the Finnish writer and director Jörn Donner shares his memories of his friend and collaborator. The movie is based on two as yet unpublished TV interviews with Bergman which Donner filmed in 1975 and 1987.

Fuck Off 2 - Images from Finland

In „Fuck Off 2“, Donner waxes sarcastic about the scourges in Finnish society by interviewing regular people. The film takes a theme of different living possibilities. Some people find happiness, others succumb to depression. Many still dream of a better life somewhere else. Donner himself undergoes cardiac surgery.

Citizen Schein

Harry Schein was an anomaly in Swedish cultural society. Equal parts playboy, intellectual, and political visionary, his life story could very well be the foundation of a Hollywood film. Citizen Schein is a film about a refugee who refused to look back, a film about powerful men, and the myths that fuel them.

The Other Side of Hope

A restaurateur befriends a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived in Finland.

The Truth About Sauna: The Truth About Finns

Taking sauna is the Finnish people's national obsession, so there are two of the per five Fins, and they build theme everywhere, even on military operations and aboard vessels, but preferably near a lake, to dive in even on ice days, with trees to cut whisking birches from. Weekly, usually on Saturday, is considered a hygienic minimum, daily the good life, especially in summer and holidays. It's a family and/or social activity, relaxing and removing social barriers, but also linked to sports and all kinds of bonding.

Isäni jalanjäljillä

Documentary about expeditions of Kai Donner to Siberia.

Fanny & Alexander: A Bergman Tapestry

Short documentary featuring interviews from the cast and crew of "Fanny and Alexander." Featured on the Criterion Collection box set of the film.

Lovers & Leavers

This movie is about Iiris Vaara. She turns 30 and meets young director Marko. All dreams come true but does Marko share her dreams?

Losing It

Tracking missing socks in the European Union.

Ingmar Bergman on Life and Work

TV Documentary about Ingmar Bergman from 1998.

Uuno Turhapuro Suomen Tasavallan Herra Presidentti

Uuno Turhapuro becomes the President of Finland. Streets are named after him and honorary companies are arranged for him. He also tries to turn Finland into a kingdom.

Angela's War

In this melodrama about love in wartime, Angela (Ida-Lotta Backman) is a Finnish nurse in Lapland who begins a torrid affair with Thomas Schmidt (Mathieu Carriere), a wounded German army captain. Their love for each other is verboten in Finland, where the Germans occupy northern Lapland until the end of the war. Finland had formed a brief alliance with Germany to fight an invading Russia in the winter of 1939, but when the Russians won that battle and took more than 16,000 square miles of land away from Finland, it was too late to successfully rout the Germans from Finnish soil. So for the entire war, the Finns were fighting Germany on their own national territory -- which makes the love affair between a Finnish nurse and German soldier a very complex issue. While Angela receives different reactions from her friends, acquaintances, and relatives, she continues on with her love for the German, against odds which are greater as time goes by.

Hockeyfeber

Hockeyfeber tells not only the story of collisions on the ice , but also about life as it really fortoner in the tough environment amateur sport unfolding in . The film depicts the sporting community for better or worse , and shows how tough and cynical demands of athletes being when the sponsors' affection, the most important.

Nine Ways to Approach Helsinki

Nine Ways to Approach Helsinki, shot by Pirjo Honkasalo and Eero Salmenhaara, is a documentary on the capital of Finland.

Brutal

The concrete costs for culture and creativity is here illustrated in punchy images.

Men Can't Be Raped

A woman who has been raped by a man at a party plots and executes an elaborate and humiliating revenge.

Hangover

Lasse is a car salesman who has vowed to never get married. He wakes up hung over one morning with a wedding ring on his finger and a nude woman in his bed.

Portraits of Women

Finnish porn movie producer Pertsa returns from America to his home country to continue his profession with hopelessly small budgets and incompetent casts and crews. A self-ironic satire about director Donner's scandalous fame in late 1960s Finland, notorious for a graphic long shot of his penis pointing northeast.

Sixtynine

Tuula's husband Jukka takes care of all domestic chores. Tuula seems to have no idea that her husband spends his evenings working as a major league ice hockey referee. She also finds out about his extra-marital affair with a female rally driver. In revenge, Tuula starts seeing her gynecologist Timo Paasi, a married man with six children.

Asfalttilampaat

A story of a doomed young love in a small narrow-minded town.

Black on White

Juha is a sales manager of a refrigerator company. His perfect-looking family and glittering array of modern kitchen appliances have just been featured in a magazine article, but in reality Juha is a womanising chauvinist more at home on the road than with his family.

Stimulantia

Stimulantia is a 1967 Swedish anthology film comprising eight episodes by eight different directors including Ingmar Bergman, Jörn Donner, Gustaf Molander and Vilgot Sjöman and starring among others Ingrid Bergman, Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Lars Ekborg and Inga Landgré.

Aamua kaupungissa

Helsinki wakes up to the summer morning in Jörn Donner's first short film, which goes through the landscapes of Katajanokka, Pohjoisranta, Market Square, Kruununhaka and Kallio