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From 8th to 17th June 2002 at Sodankylä, Finland

A cinema get-together of European youth @ Midnight Sun Film Festival 2002

“I love cinema. I loved. As long as it was.”
- Director Aki Kaurismäki, Helsingin Sanomat 24.5.2002

Simultaneously with the Sodankylä Midnight Sun Film Festival a group of young Europeans interested in cinema met in Sodankylä, Finland. Euphoria Borealis invited three groups from Germany, France and Czech Republic, all together around twenty young people.

They got together in the wonderful surroundings of the nature of Lapland. The event had as a starting point a need to observe the cinema in Europe from the point of view of the youth. Regional inequality and the pressure of other media towards cinema wakes up the urge to act. The aim was to bring new viewpoints to the discussion about cinema and to encourage to keep it lively among the youth, the professionals and the media during and after the festival.

The participants organised workshops for the week and prepared studies on the themes they considered as interesting, bringing new aspects and viewpoints to the cinema field. The material product was various. There were:

• a short fiction film, “Searching for Coppola”
• interviews rising the issue of dreams and utopia in cinema
• two jingles for the festival -one with a mosquito and another one with dance music-
• a love story with puppets
• a documentary about the indigenous people of Sodankylä
• conferences with the directors Denys Arkand, Fernando E. Solanas, Francis Ford Coppola and Miklos Jancso

All films were shown for the festival audience in one place in the heart of the festival, the school. The event had intercultural co-operation as one of the main aspects and aims.

It was all about Image-nations: exploring, sharing and experimenting countries, nations and their traditions through images. Cinema is something we have in common but at the same time every nation has its own particularities and there are various ways to reflect one’s culture via images. Sharing a culture and its habits through something we all know – cinema – makes familiarising a lot easier.

The main idea was to talk about cinema and cultures in many ways: seriously, mindlessly, experimentally – all the time enjoying the midnight sun and forming contacts to the international guests, local and festival people.

The organising group of the event was Euphoria Borealis ry, the representative organisation of NISI MASA in Finland. The Encounter of Imagenations was organised as a venue independent from the festival.


The event got subsidies from the European Committee’s YOUTH programme. The Sodankylä Midnight Sun Film Festival and director Aki Kaurismäki supported the project, as well as the Sodankylä Municipality, NISI MASA and PAND – Artists For Peace.