Pirjo Honkasalo

A searing examination of the unrelenting Chechen conflict, observed through the prisms of a Russian military boys academy, a war-torn town and a children's refugee camp.

Set in Tokyo, "Ito - A Diary of an Urban Priest" tells the story of Yoshinobu Fujioka, a young Buddhist priest, and his fervent search for the meaning of life amid oppressive dreams, back alleys of the city and the darkness of the human mind. Yoshinobu hears confession in a women's prison, bars and an old geisha house, while the many layers of nocturnal Tokyo and unpredictable memories are twisted into a web that drives people face-to-face with one another. (dokufest.com)

The life of early 20th century author, journalist, and revolutionary Algot Untola (also known as Maiju Lassila, Irmari Rantamala and under several more pseudonyms), one of the most enigmatic figures in Finnish literature. (imdb)

A fourteen-year-old boy in a stifling Helsinki slum takes some unwise life lessons from his soon-to-be-incarcerated older brother, in Finnish master Pirjo Honkasalo's gorgeously stylized and emotionally devastating work about what we pass on to younger generations, and the ways we do it. (tiff.net)

The twin sisters Helena and Irene are born in Helsinki during World War II. A few months later their mother, Sirkka, leaves the girls in the care of their grandmother, an old communist, and runs away with a German soldier. Their life under the protection of their grandmother and the teachings of communism ends first with the death of Stalin, then with that of their grandmother. The girls are eight years old when they are put in an orphanage.