Erkki Astala’s Apollo series and seminar will take place at Kino Regina between the 1th and 15th of September 2022. The Apollo award is granted to an individual or an organisation who has  significant input in the promotion of Finnish documentary cinema. The Apollo awardees curate a carte blanche series for the DocPoint programme, consisting of films of their choice. Tickets to the screenings through Kino Regina. 

 The 2022 DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival had to be moved entirely online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This is why Erkki Astala’s Apollo series and seminar was postponed till the autumn.

DocPoint will screen five documentaries selected by Astala at Kino Regina in the beginning of September. The series will kick off with a seminar raising the question  “How does a viewer experience the world and reality of a documentary film?”

 What is at the core of the pleasure that is caused in us by documentary films in particular?

These questions will be discussed on Saturday the 10th of September ar 12.00 in Kino Regina. The conversation will be lead by Astala, and he will be joined by Susanna Helke who is a documentary director and Professor at Aalto University,  Anu Koivunen, a Professor at Turku University and media researcher with PHD in History of Cinema, Jan Nåls, a lecturer at Arcada who also holds  a PHD on empathy in documentary film, and Emma Taulo, a screenwriter and commissioner/producer of youth documentary series at YLE.

In his roles as the Head of Production at the Finnish Film Foundation and the Head of Co-productions at YLE, Astala has been a decision maker and commissioner who has uncompromisingly defended the film industry, and the kind of craft that independent film production at its best stands for. He has been an important pioneer and spokesman between independent film producers and YLE.

Documentary cinema is the art of reality, and the question of truthfulness has been at its core since the beginning.  The five documentary films in the Erkki Astala Apollo series each in their own way shed light to the interplay between truth, the private and the public.  Whose truth does the viewer see in her mind?

Tickets to the screenings through Kino Regina. 

The programme for the Apollo series in Kino Regina:

SAT  10.9. at 12.00-13.30 APOLLO SEMINAR
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SAT 10.9 at 14.00 SIN – A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT EVERYDAY CRIMES (1996, dir. Virpi Suutari & Susanna Helke, 38 min) + THE WHITE SKY (1998, dir. Virpi Suutari & Susanna Helke, 54 min)

In the early works of Suutari and Helke everyday life is framed by the seven deadly sins and nature destroyed by nickel combine.
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SUN 11.9. at 16.10 MOANA WITH SOUND  (1926/2011, dir. Monica Flaherty & Robert J. Flaherty, 98 min) 

An early gem from the borderlands of documentary and fiction uses an anthropological approach to depict life on a Samoan island  -now with a soundtrack!
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TUE 13.9. at 17.00 SOCIALISM (2014, dir. Peter von Bagh, 86 min) 

This  rarely seen collage film studies the history of the left wing movement through a cinematic lens. 
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WED 14.9. at 19.20 F FOR FAKE (1973, dir. Orson Welles, 89 min) 

Welles’ legendary, trailblazing docufiction takes you on a dizzying journey into the world of con artists and art forgers.
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THU 15.9. at 19.05 LES GLEANEURS ET LA GLEANEURS (2000, dirj. Agnès Varda, 82 min)

This study of waste food collectors by the legendary French director is a warm demonstration of its makers’ unfailing eye and willingness to experiment.
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Photo: Laura Malmivaara