
Pekka Karjalainen
Sound
Known For

A survival drama about an ice skater stranded on an ice floe at the Arctic Sea. When the ice floe starts to float towards south and melt, the ice skater must use all means necessary to survive.
Ice Skater

Young Pietari lives with his reindeer-herding father in arctic Finland. On the eve of Christmas, a nearby excavation makes a frightening discovery and an evil Santa Claus is unleashed…
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

The twin sisters Helena and Irene are born in Helsinki during World War II. A few months later their mother, Sirkka, leaves the girls in the care of their grandmother, an old communist, and runs away with a German soldier. Their life under the protection of their grandmother and the teachings of communism ends first with the death of Stalin, then with that of their grandmother. The girls are eight years old when they are put in an orphanage. Their mother shows up at the orphanage in the company of Ramon, a Spanish trapeze artist. They are on a talent search for a German circus. Ramon trains the reluctant Irene during circus tours in Central Europe. She becomes the trapeze star of the circus. The hard work soon exhausts Irene and she falls from height, as if on purpose. Helena has secretly learned the art of fire-eating. Now she is burdened with both her mother and her sister. The violent life, however, separates the three from each other. In the present-day Helsinki the middle-aged...
Fire-Eater

Group of old friends gather in a summer villa to celebrate a surprise birthday party for Mitzi, who is the dramatic focal point of the group. The weekend starts ominously when Mitzi does not respond well to the surprise party. It turns out that Mitzi has just filed for divorce and has been looking forward to a peaceful weekend. The tense situation takes a new turn when Mitzi's best friend brings her new boyfriend for a visit, who happens to be a Swedish film star. Familiar surroundings and the old rituals get to the core of the group and make them forget their adulthood. Revelations, not meant to harm the balance, make them reassess their past as well as their present.
Games People Play

The film tells about members of Finnish women's Lotta Service during the Second World War through the eyes of three young women.
Promise

Episodic study of feelings where six stories intertwine over one Saturday in a small town. Two boys save a young woman, Anni, and her baby from suicide by drowning. Esa, a down-on-his-luck musician in need of a loan, arrives to his father's 60th birthday party. Waitress Leena tries to stir up a romance between her co-workers at a pizza parlor. Middle-aged Ilpo comes home early from the paper mill and finds a strange man in their bedroom. Old Milja waits for her daughter Merja at the hospital where she is visiting her terminally ill husband Henri. Teenage Santeri tries to cope with his homosexuality.
The River

Emma and Joel get dumped by their partners on the same day, and when they meet each other they think they're a perfect match. Emma discovers she is pregnant and ends up taking care of Joel's mother while he goes off on tour to conduct around the world. Pregnancy, a crazy mother-in-law, trust, and loyalty test the couple to make the right decisions.
Playing Solo

Headfirst is a black comedy about a single mother with anger management problems and her teenage daughter who is always in trouble at school. With yet another school comes a new teacher and a blast from the past for the mother. Before long, an accidental pickpocket and a notoriously lousy storyteller teams up with this one dysfunctional sort of a family. Nothing is the same anymore. Headfirst is a story about missing teeth, strange friends, hidden dreams and long-gone love. And about a hare.
Headfirst

Aliide experienced The Great Terror under Stalin’s regime, and decades after her hometown people were deported to Siberia, she lives alone in an isolated house. One night, she finds a young woman in her yard – Zara has just escaped from the claws of the Russian mafia that held her as a sex slave. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in unearthing each other’s motives and gradually their stories merge into one, revealing the tragedy of a family during the cruelest years in Estonian history.
Purge

Juha is 38 years old and has three small children and a depressed wife. He sees himself as strong and believes a man should provide for his family. But one day Juha is fired from his job. Ashamed, he weaves a web of lies to hide the fact from his family. With the help of his friend Olli, Juha begins prostituting himself to support his wife and children. With this he makes in two hours what it took him two days to earn before. The shame and deception mushroom, but the pay from the new profession seems to offset the downside.
Man's Job

Grump's life follows the same familiar routines: spring is here and the early potato harvest is ripening. But Grump crashes his beloved Ford Escort and the car has to be scrapped. A new, modern vehicle is no match for quality and the nearest Escort, a 1972 model, can be found in Germany. When the Grumps's sons refuse to help, he must travel to Germany alone.
The Grump: In Search of an Escort

Young Siiri is starting her life on her own. She wants to be independent and live a normal life, although she is mentally handicapped. She begins to make true of her dreams, where she has a real working place and she hopes to find also a husband.
Gimme Some Respect

Eden is a coming-of-age film about a Protestant Confirmation camp on a summer’s week, set in the archipelago of Helsinki. Aliisa is the intellectually confident non-believer, Jenna is the queen bee and Panu is the scared bird. The experience of these teenagers is affected by Tiina, a young and eager priest.
Eden

In Soviet-era Estonia, three young mavericks drop everything and flee to Sweden, but soon learn the free world is not all it's cracked up to be.
The Dissidents

Other Girls tells the story of four young girls nearing graduation, all of them struggling with various issues.
Other Girls

The Grump prepares to die – everything is done and his wife is dead. He’s making his own coffin when the life walks in, all of a sudden. The granddaughter needs the stubbornness and wisdom of her grandpa. In return, The Grump gets a meaning for his life – and a big secret.
Happier Times, Grump

Despite peaceful speeches, the army of the Soviet Russian is attacking Estonia, and the country's government is declaring a mobilization for all. Henn Ahas, the son of a poor family, hesitates to go to war.
Names in Marble

Haunted by his traumatic past and cautious about the prospects of an uncertain future, a fourteen year old boy named Juhani winds up in an isolated boys' home known as The Island. Juhani has been shuttled between foster homes and temporary families for the past six years, leaving any prospect of stability in his life a faded dream. When Juhani winds up in a remote shelter for troubled youth known as The Island, he has little idea of how ruthless superintendent Olavi Harjula can truly be.
The Home of Dark Butterflies

Johannes, a young Ingrian Finn, grows up in Soviet Estonia with his liberal student mother and pro-Soviet grandmother. The boy's life is revolutionized when he experiences first love and his mother decides to leave for Finland.
Goodbye Soviet Union

Stigu and Ella have a just-sex relationship. Stigu is secretly in love but settles for what he can get because Ella wants nothing more. Until they find themselves in a same work project: designing an advertisement for the Family Federation on sustainable relationships. It seems like mission impossible since Ella doesn't believe in the whole concept and Stigu knows nothing about it.