Joining us for this weekend is six students from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (UIAH) as well as their professor, filmmaker Kanerva Cederström.  The students represent a variety of interests on the side of documentary film, one of them is sculptor, two have university studies of philosophy and sociology, one is film editor,  one is photographer, one specialized in bhuto dance…  The workshop is part of an ongoing teaching experiment , begun in Fall 09, with meetings and independent work, under the title ”Dimensions of Cinema”, where we deconstruct elements of film, and its highlight is an exposition in May 2010 of all the works done during the year.  We will be screening shorts from each of the students, followed by a discussion and brief intermission.  After that we will screen Cederström’s latest Strange Events, a unique and inventive city symphony doc of Helsinki. 

Strange Events is a dreamlike journey through Helsinki. The film’s main characters are a tram, the citizens on its route and the strange events that occur along the way. This is a documentary—but of a most unique, whimsical, charming and truly inventive sort. In the eyes of director Kanerva Cederstrom, the city becomes a symphony of beauty and humor. The film takes place in a tram, on the streets and in the parks during one day and night. During this journey the strange and the familiar, the tragic and the humorous alter their meanings. We see the world with new eyes—and new love.

Moving freely in time and space, the film is a mental journey through states of mind, through rugged visions and forgotten memories.

“Birds can sleep while they are flying. I can’t remember the last time I was able to sleep, but I dream while awake.”

“I think I would want to see this film again every day after I come back home from work.”

– Hatsumi Mizuno

A young man wants to live the Finnish dream, but the dreams are in danger of being crushed under the wheels of society’s urbanization. A thoughtful, autobiographical study on the relationship between Finns and water.

The structures of hierarchies and timetables are impossible to the illuminous ones. Trying to live their lives free they had failed. But outside they would find only the disappearing forms and wastelands. Things one could not identify, he could only sense or imagine.

A cinematographic portrait of people born in the 80’s.

Kanerva Cederström –
Born in Helsinki, Finland on the 22nd of April in 1949.
Studies at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Political Sciences.
Master of PolSc in 1981.
Filmstudies in Stockholm, Dramatiska Institutet in 1984.
Professor of Documentary Film, UIAH, 2003-2010.