Films by CCL members.

Ruthless Times - Songs of Care/
Armotonta menoa - Hoivatyön lauluja, 2022/92 min

A documentary film with choral tableaus about the elderly care crisis in a Nordic welfare state.
DIRECTOR: Susanna Helke
SCRIPT: Susanna Helke & Markku Heikkinen
MUSIC: Anna-Mari Kähärä
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Sari Aaltonen
EDITING: Markus Leppälä, Inka Lahti, Samu Kuukka
SOUND DESIGN: Juuso Oksala
PRODUCER: Timo Korhonen Road Movies LTD
FUNDED BY: Finnish Film Foundation, AVEK, Finnish Broadcasting
Company YLE , Kone Foundation, Aalto Studios

Ruthless Times – Songs of Care is a documentary film with choral tableaus juxtaposed with documentary episodes, capturing with its dark humor and poignant moments, the experiences of those working in the field: a care worker is blacklisted for revealing malpractices in her unit, the retirees of a remote municipality witness the privatization of their care services, robots roam the halls of care homes and nurses are relegated to remote-care call centers.
The care-workers’ anonymous testimonies are composed into choral songs; elderly citizens sing impudent songs playing with the economic jargon of our time. What cannot be talked about, has to be sung!To edit, click on the text to start adding your own words.


AWARDS:
Locarno International Film Festival’s Critic’s week Zonta Club Locarno Award 2022.
DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival Best Domestic Documentary YLE Award & Audience Award 2022.
Tampere International Film Festival Main Prize (over 30 mins) & Church Media Foundation Prize, 2022.
Nordische Filmtage Lübeck the best Documentary Film Award, 2022.
Umeå European Film Festival Rödspoven prize, 2022.
Nancy International Film Festival Press Award, 2023.
Jussi Award Nomination for the best documentary film, 2022.
Nomination for the Best Nordic Documentary Nordisk Panorama, 2022.
 
FESTIVALS:
Locarno International Film Festival Critic’s Week (2022), IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Masters section (2022), Nordisk Panorama competition (2022), CPH:DOX, Copenhagen (2023), Tromsø International Film Festival (2023), Tempo Documentary Film Festival, Stockholm (2023), Tampere International Film Festival (2022), Docpoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival (2022),  Red Carpet Film Festival, Hyvinkää (2022), Midnight Sun Film Festival (2022), Nordische Filmtage Lübeck (2022), This Human World -International Human Rights Film Festival (2022), Nordkapp IFF (2022), Jönköping IFF (2022), Kasseler Docfest (2022), Warch Docs IFF (2022), Nordic Labour FF (2022), European Film Forum Scanorama, Vilnius (2022), Umeå European Film Festival (2022), L’Alternativa- Festival de Cinema Independent Barcelona (2022), One World - International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Prague (2023), FIPP Festival International du Film Politique (2023), Polarize- Nordic Film Nights, Brussels (2023), Vera Documentary Film Festival Marienhamn (2023), Human International Documentary Film Festival, Oslo (2023), ZagrebDox International Documentary Film Festival (2023), Vox Feminae Zagreb (2023), Festival La Gran Pantalla, Barcelona (2023), Impacte! Human Rights Festival of Catalonia (2023), Ecofalante, Brasilia (2023), Jean Rouch International Film Festival (2023), Nancy International Film Festival (2023), Pravo Ljudski Film Festival, Sarajevo (2023),  Filmfest Sundsvall (2023), International Cinematographers’ Film Festival Manaki Brothers (2023), Festiwal Mediów Człowiek w Zagrożeniu, Lodz (2023), Arvamusfestival, Estonia (2023).
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Earth Song/Strana Axê/Maan laulu
2026/ 118 min

DIRECTOR: Erol Mintaş
SCRIPT: Erol Mintaş, Mikko Viljanen
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Juice Huhtala
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Nanna Hirvonen
COSTUME DESIGN: Roosa Marttiini
MAKE-UP DESIGN: Claudia Goetz
EDITING: Antti Reikko, Erol Mintaş
SOUND DESIGN: Sebastian Schmidt
CAST: Dilan Gwyn, Zenan Tünc, Feyyaz Duman, Ali Seçkiner Alıcı
PRODUCERS: Mete Sasioglu, Erol Mintaş
CO-PRODUCERS: Tanja Georgieva-Waldhauer, Anna Blom
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Sons of Lumière
SALES COMPANY: https://www.alief.co.uk/earthsong


Rojin is a doctor whose dedicated work in conflict zones has left her estranged from her family. She faces an unexpected visit from her father that forces a confrontation of her complex and painful past, which along with disappointment and grief, gives her the tools and strength to take her adopted 12-year-old daughter on a journey of truth and reconciliation.

AWARDS:
Winner: Best Feature Fiction
Amsterdam Koerdish FF (2026)

FESTIVALS:
International Film Festival Rotterdam (2026)
Midnight Sun Film Festival (2026)
Istanbul Fil Festival (2026)
Amsterdam Koerdish FF (2026)

Elämä ja yö/Equal Dust
2025/ 14 min

DIRECTOR: Jani Peltonen
SCRIPT: Jani Peltonen
EDITING: Matti Näränen
SOUND DESIGN: Antti Onkila
PRODUCER: Kaarle Aho, Pauliina Maus
FUNDED BY: Finnish Film Foundation, AVEK, Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE 

In November 1983, a camera test was filmed in Helsinki. A 12-minute uninterrupted tracking shot runs through a nocturnal cityscape. At the same time, NATO's Able Archer 83 military exercise is underway in Europe. It is a scenario of how a nuclear war is believed to begin.

A significant part of this scenario includes the aggression of the “Orange” forces against Finland. The bigger powers have always used smaller countries like Finland as pawns and battlefields, both in their real and imagined wars.

The film intervenes in NATO’s scenario and presents an alternative storyline that turns the camera test into a cinematic land survey that illustrates the extent of the imagined and possible destruction. Instead of the authors of the scenario, the perspective of its subject emerges. The Finnish Eurovision Song Contest entries from the 1980s also serve as a counter-archive. You can find fear and dystopia in the lyrics but also love and hope.

AWARDS:
Winner: Best Short Documentary Award
2026 Docpoint Film Festival
Winner: Best Short Film Award
2026 Seeyousound
Winner: Special Mention
2026 2Annas Riga ISFF 

FESTIVALS:
Edinburgh IFF, Scotland (UK), 08/25
​MakeDox, North Macedonia, 08/25
Kyiv ISFF, Ukraine, 09/25
Uppsala SFF, Sweden, 10/25
DOK Leipzig, Germany, 10/25
Nordic Film Days, Germany, 11/25
Porto/Post/Doc, Portugal, 11/25
DocPoint, Finland, 02/26
Finn Filmnapok, Hungary, 02/26
Seeyousound, Italy, 03/26
2Annas Riga ISFF, Latvia, 04/26
BAFICI, Argentina, 04/26
Finno-Ugric FF, Finland, 06/26
Palm Springs ISF, USA, 06/26
Lago Film Fest, Italy, 07/26
Shortly SES, Finland, 08/26

                11 Underground
​                   2025/ 84 min

  On the Tenderness of Men
​ 2025

DIRECTOR: Chico Pereira
SCRIPT: Chico Pereira
MUSIC: Petar Dunkakov
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Julian Schwanitz 
EDITING: Okku Nuutilainen, Nick Gibbon
SOUND DESIGN: Kinane Moualla
PRODUCER: Kaarle Aho
FUNDED BY:  SES, AVEK and YLE. (Finland)
Co-produced by ARTE France. Supported by 
CNC (Centre national du cinéma et de 
l'image animée, France), and CMM (Spain)

11 Underground is inspired on a mining
strike that occurred in my hometown
Almadén, Spain, in which 11 mercury
miners locked-in in the mines for 11 days
to protest their precarious economic
conditions. As a filmmaker-researcher,
I wondered, what if 11 people locked-in
in the mine for 11 whole days now, when
post-industrial Almadén suffers high
migration rates, unemployment and
pessimism? The methodology used
the past mining strike as a documentary “scenario” and performed it in the current post-industrial conditions, to intervene in the present and collectively imagine future
possibilities. Apart from engaging our
collective mining past, by performing the form and duration of a previous workers’ strike, this artistic research film project proposes the underground as a living and symbolic space to foster a series of conversations, encounters, and social and political propositions to contribute to a process of reimagining Almaden, which rose from a mine shaft more than 2000 years ago, as something else besides a mining town. 

AWARDS:
Winner: Best Feature Documentary Award
Docpoint Film Festival 2025
Winner: Best Director Award For Feature Doc
Alcances Documentary Film Festival 2025
Winner: Social Impact Award
Activists Without Borders Film Festival 2025

FESTIVALS:
Docpoint Film Festival 2025
Alcances Documentary Film Festival 2025
Workers Unite! Film Festival 2025
Activists Without Borders Film Festival 2025
Rizoma Film Festival 2025

DIRECTOR: Minou Norouzi
​SOUND:
Anni Kytömäki
Cameron Randall
Iiro Komulainen

Supported by Kone Foundation, Helsinki
Collegiumfor Advanced Studies, Helsinki
International Artist Programme, and the
Austrian Embassy Helsinki

‘On the Tenderness of Men’ is a
polyphonic audio-visual installation
narrating thehistory of the iconic
Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki
and its architect, the brothers Tuomo
and Timo Suomalainen who designed
​the building. The work speculates on
the architects’ personal history of
displacement during the Winter War
of 1939 and brings attention to the
forgotten workers who built the
church. The piece draws on materials
from the Museum of Finnish
Architecture archive, presents
architectural observations and ties
this to Kyösti Larson’s poem “The
Wanderer of the Stormy Sea,”
dedicated to Suursaari, the place
where the Suomalainen brothers fled
from during World War II. Directly
addressing museum visitors,
current and former lovers, and the
wider society, all together these
elements create speculative research
that seeks to reinterpret the
construction of Temppeliaukio Church
with a gentle gaze. By juxtaposing
current political issues with the personal
history of the architects, the work reads
the building as a physical and emotional
civil defence shelter and refuge amid
​today’s crises. – Kaisa Karvinen

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EXHIBITIONS & SCREENINGS:
'FIX: Care & Repair' Architecture and Design Museum, Helsinki 2024-2025
Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival 2025
Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film 2025
International Documentary Festival Bangkok WTD! 2025
'Booked', MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Center 2025
Kinship, Abolition, Freedom Dartmouth College USA 2025
Video Art Festival Turku 2025
Athens Ethnographic Film Festival 2025