Finland

Following the death of his wife, professional chef Cheng travels with his young son to a remote village in Finland to connect with an old Finnish friend he once met in Shanghai. Upon arrival, nobody in the village seems to know his friend but local café owner Sirkka offers him accommodation and in return Cheng helps her in the kitchen surprising the locals with the delights of Chinese cuisine. Gradually his cooking encourages these vastly different cultures to connect and Cheng is soon a celebrated member of the community. Unfortunately his tourist visa is soon to run out and it's up to the villagers to come up with a plan to help him stay.

Originally planned as a joint train trip with her lover, the shy Finn Laura embarks on the journey to the north of Russia to visit ancient rock paintings alone by herself. When she is assigned her sleeping compartment, she finds her new companion is a rather obnoxious and crude vodka-drinking, shaven-headed miner named Ljoha. Over the next few days, the disparate passengers are forced to get along with each other in the close quarters of the compartment. Only when Laura gradually gives up her dismissive attitude it becomes apparent that the two have much more in common than she ever imagined. Director Juho Kuosmanen (THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MÄKI) sends two outsiders on an amusing and deeply touching journey during which they are confronted - without kitsch - with the truth of their feelings.

Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path towards this honourable goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s general tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking their happiness. This gentle tragicomedy, previously thought to be lost, is the fourth part of Aki Kaurismäki’s working-class trilogy ("Shadows in Paradise", "Ariel", and "The Match Factory Girl").

A poker-playing restaurateur and former traveling salesman befriends a group of refugees newly arrived to Finland.

This captivating exploration of Alvar Aalto, the defining figure in Scandic design and one of Europe's greatest modern architects, focuses on his remarkable and loving partnership with wife, Aino. Theirs was a profoundly humanist vision that put people at the centre of design, and ranged from work in furniture design through to huge architectural projects. They mixed with, and influenced, major figures of modernist art and design including Le Corbusier, Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Come on a cinematic tour of their iconic buildings all over the world, from a library in Russia, a student dormitory at MIT, an art collector's private house near Paris, to a pavilion in Venice. Narrated by experts in the field and featuring never before seen archive footage, Aalto tells the love story of an extraordinary couple with a great passion for human scale architecture.

Helsinki, 1945. The end of the war brings a new sense of artistic and social freedom for painter Tove Jansson. While focusing her artistic dreams on painting, the enchanting tales of the ‘Moomin’ creatures she told to scared children in bomb shelters, rapidly take on a life of their own, bringing international fame.bio

Jaakko is a blind man who is confined to a wheelchair. He is in love with Sirpa, with whom he has had a long-distance relationship but only by telephone. The two have never met in person. One day Jaakko decides to travel to meet Sirpa, relying on strangers' help to make the journey.