We selected a few films that touched us.The trailers should convince you, otherwise Laura’s words will.
We asked our lovely guide and volounteer at the festival to tell us more about the spirit of Midnight Sun films.

Midnight Sun Film Festival

“For me the best music is all about the music.  Midnight Sun Film Festival has taught me that the best movies are just about the movies.  What I mean is that in the music and movies the elements needed to build an art piece are the most important and most interesting. Music and films that are so often more about the celebrities than the story and how the piece is made.  I’ll try to explain.

Example number 1.  Experiencing the moving gig in the music festival does not need any particular stage show whit the fire, lights, media or artists drawing the audience. It is enough that the music is played on live in that particular place where you are. And the music itself is the most touching and beautiful element of your experience.

Example number 2. The best movies do not lift up any celebrities. The story is not about who is acting in the film or how creatively the sponsor’s products are presented in the film. The stories in the best films are build from light and shadow, from filming and editing, from sound and silence, from directing and maybe little bit also from acting.

In Midnight Sun Film Festival it is not about entertaining or pleasing or even giving the audience
what is expected them to want. Even they seem to be pretty pleased.
Midnight Sun Film Festival is about beauty of the real films.
It is celebration of living light.”
Laura

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Clouds of Sils Maria
by Olivier Assayas


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Ballaad (Free Range)
by Veiko Õunpuu


AUTUMN-BALL-dirVeikoOunpuu

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Un poison violent (Love like Poison)
by Katell Quillévéré


Katell Quillévéré

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Le Meraviglie (the Wonders)
by Alice Rohrwacher


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Real Films. Celebration of living light. I totally agree with Laura.
Some kind of truth, made easier to reach in the atmosphere of the festival.

Considering Laura’s definition, Le Meraviglie is definitly the film who moved me the most.

Third and last day of festival. Not much sleep. No darkness for one week except in screening venues.
After conferences all “night” with new friends and random people on the river bank,
and a conference of Olivier Assayas,
I was on a cloud, floating above and through the courtyard of the old school.
I had all the emotions and tiredness gathered during the trip, available for this last movie. I was aware.
We sat under the big tent, the most symbolic venue of the festival.

The film just blew me up.
#intense

The director Alice Rorhwacher put nice words on this feeling I had.
She said her movie was like a flat, a house, she wanted spectators to explore,
move in, go from one room to the other, make their own way.

When asked by someone in the audience, why she chose to name the main character Gelsomina (character in La Strada by Fellini), Alice Rohrwacher answered:
“Gelsomina is not the name I chose, it’s the name her parents chose.
I mean, I think the names tell a lot about who these people are.
When you know a child and her name is Gelsomina you can imagine a lot about her parents”
#Awesome

People often compare her to Fellini. Well, for the amount of emotion shared to the audience,
they’re equally genious to me.

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Thank you to Laura for this beautiful and inspiring text.
Thank you to the organisation of Midnight Sun Film Festival for the warm welcoming and emotion, special big up to Laura and Elina.
Thank you to visitFinland and the municipality of Sodankylä for inviting us in Lapland and Expedia for fly us there (and back).
This trip is part of Must Love Festivals project. More stories to come about Finland and closer.