Outi Rousu

Instruments of a Beating Heart

First graders in a Tokyo public elementary school are presented with a challenge for the final semester: performing "Ode to Joy" at the ceremony for the new incoming first graders. Ayame, who often struggles to keep up with the group, is determined to play a major part — the big drum.

Vika!

Vika, who is 84, is one of the eldest DJs in the world. Because of her attitude, she is far from any stereotypes about senior citizens. Bittersweet documentary musical about consistence in following your own path and fighting for your dreams.

The Making of a Japanese

Intimately following 1st and 6th graders at a public elementary school in Tokyo, we observe kids learning the traits necessary to become part of Japanese society.

Raise the Bar

A girls' basketball team in Iceland push against societies expectations under the guidance of an unconventional coach, Brynjar Karl Sigurðsson. The team are ready to change the world, but is the world ready for them?

Walks with Me

Old woman looks outside her apartment window and sees her life passing, or dancing, in front of her eyes.

Miss Blue Jeans

Year 1977. Punk and new wave rock'n roll has arrived to remote Finland and a bleak small town Oulu where increasingly odd-looking youths began to appear in the street with a message. Their rebellion speaks to Välde (17). Välde dreams of joining a rock band and becoming famous. He wants to get drunk for the first time, and to win the love of Pike, the most beautiful girl in the class. When Pike wins the Miss Blue Jeans contest organised by the country´s leading (and only) pop music magazine Suosikki and takes as her boyfriend the bourgeois Henri Hakala, Välde puts all his eggs in one basket. He abandons his former self and begins purposefully constructing a new persona for himself. But everything doesn’t go as Välde wanted … The film is based on a novel by Kauko Röyhkä, an author and indie rock musician.

Stars Above

Stars above follows the stories of three women from the same family across three different decades. The main characters – Saima, Tuulikki and Salla – each lives in the same country house. Saima´s story takes place in the war time 1942, when Finland fought against Soviet Union, Tuulikki´s story in colourful year 1978 and Salla´s story in the present day. Each woman is between 30 and 40. This deep and beautiful, yet humorous film pictures the encounters between people and the possibilities for choice. How much does the time we live in affect us - and our ability to hold on to our dreams? What are those things which we pass on from one generation to the next? What changes, what remains the same? And to what extent do mothers´ choices, let alone their unspoken secrets, affect their daughters´ lives?

Garbage Prince

Jed (19) walks out on his former life, without destination, without explanation, and gets on a train. He ends up by happenstance in a small eastern town in Finland where he soon comes face to face with the daily rigors of independent life. Coping becomes a challenge for him almost to the point of being an obsession. Of all the people in town, Jed seems to constantly run across the prickly and quick-witted Lulu (17). Gradually, without either of them admitting it, their relationship changes from bickering, picking on each other and a battle of wills to friendship, and as can happen, finally to love.

Heartbeats

Seven stories of women. Occasionally intersecting with each other in everyday situations. Parallel episodes of hope and abandonment, addiction and infidelity, but also friendship and trust.

Burst

A couple shares an intimate moment in their bedroom. His attempts to arouse her go seriously wrong, resulting in a series of emotional, physical and hydrological explosions.

While the Cat's Away

When a young pedantic daughter is at work, her mother transforms into a passionate dancer, using their overfilled flat as a stage. A heartwarming comedy about prejudice, self-respect and dreams fulfilled.

Taking Moses for a Ride

Ten groups of kids from various parts of Finland, aged between 12 and 15, improvise an episode each based on one of the Bible's Ten Commandments.

Oulu Burning - Town That Vanished

Documentary describing the curious of tendency of old historic buildings to burn in the city of Oulu.

Wanted

WANTED is based on the archival materials of the Uppsala Institute for racial biology (Uppsala University, Sweden). Today – in this very building – research into genetic manipulation is being conducted by dissecting DNA. WANTED animation deals with people’s classification based on outward appearance. The subject matter is indeed a timely one, nowadays masked behind the cover of technology as it is. Does modern genetic manipulation justify the previous century’s racial research? Wanted was one of the five nominees for the European Short Film Academy Award 1999.