The 53rd edition of Tampere Film Festival

In the evening Emma and I went to Tampere Film Festival’s Awarded Films screening in the Tuulensuu Palace. We saw three short films:

1. National Competition, Risto Jarva Prize:

BLUSH – AN EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGE
Iiti Yli-Harja | Finland | 2022 | Animation, Documentary | 15 min

Risto Jarva Award is an annual film industry award, given out by the Finnish Film Foundation and awarded to a new Finnish film that is fresh, distinctive, and original.

Blush – An Extraordinary Voyage is light as powder, on its surface. The story joyously utilizes sci-fi conventions, and the adventure it takes the viewer on is entertaining, grasping and profoundly moving. Although it is glitz and glam, friendship, cheese balls and make-up, below are heavy themes: it’s about human rights, violence and even death.


2. National Competition, Under 30 minutes, Main Prize

SCENIC VIEW
Maija Blåfield | Finland | 2023 | Experimental, Documentary | 16 min

The National Jury appreciated the skillful way in which this film subverted genre expectations to create a humourous yet thought-provoking commentary on how we look at nature.


3. International Competition, GRAND PRIX

DAS ROTOHR
RED EARS
Paul Drey | Germany 2022 | Animation, Documentary | 30 min

Because there are very few cinematographic works that dare to tackle this “elephant in the room” that is the contemporary omnipresence of colonialism, this family secret in the complex and apparently polite relationship between Africa and the West.  And even less works that manage to do so, with as much modesty and delicacy, avoiding the pitfalls of the emptiness of good intentions and the cynicism and egocentricity of our time. 


-3 °C, cloudy