Auli Mantila
Writing
Known For

Estonia tells the story of the tragic accident of the car-ferry MS Estonia, which deeply shocked the world in the autumn of 1994. Through the moving personal stories of victims, survivors, loved ones and investigators, the eight-part series explores how it is possible that 852 people lost their lives and no one is held accountable.
Estonia

A journalist traces a microchip found in baby food. A bank manager's mistake ensnares her in a much larger scheme. A family falls apart after the father goes missing. An insurance examiner investigates what happened to a border control veterinarian. This suspenseful Nordic noir drama enters the world of international money laundering through the stories of ordinary people caught up in the crimes.
Transport

Mariia visits her childhood home and reminisces about the summer of 1986, when a girl named Mimi arrived in the small village and filled the life of the then 15-year-old Mariia with light.
Light Light Light

Summer 1962 and Olli Mäki has a shot at the world championship title in featherweight boxing. From the Finnish countryside to the bright lights of Helsinki, everything has been prepared for his fame and fortune. All Olli has to do is lose weight and concentrate. But there is a problem – he has fallen in love with Raija.
The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki

On a winter evening Dad returns home drunk. A quarrel breaks out. Dad has a shotgun. Tiger and Mom escape the house and a haunting silence falls. Tiger must return inside to see what has happened.
The Tiger

Guled and Nasra are a loving couple, living in the outskirts of Djibouti city with their teenage son, Mahad. However, they are facing difficult times: Nasra urgently needs an expensive surgery to treat a chronic kidney disease. Guled is already working hard as a gravedigger to make ends meet.
The Gravedigger's Wife

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

It's almost Christmas but these three people are still on the road. The products don't sell, the car is a wreck and the weather is freezing. Moreover there is a problem: how to cope with an emerging friendship?
The Painting Sellers

When her sister is mugged and raped, Oili, a young female forensic dentist, meets a group of abused women who have taken matters to their own hands to make the living in fear and just letting it happen stop.
Geography of Fear

There's this hot ice-hockey guy called Lauri Mäntyvaara. Satu promises she'll do her best, so that her best friend Heidi will get him. You'd think that the picturesque Finnish Archipelago would be the perfect place to discover your first love (and get rid of your virginity), but it will not be easy, if a cynical protein-shake-slurping ice hockey team thinks the target of your desire should focus only on the European Championship, and the only places you can escape to are the pretentious summer wedding parties - or bitter divorce parties.
Thick Lashes of Lauri Mäntyvaara

Vaarala, a reserved romantic photographer, has an odd artistic vision of loneliness: he takes serial photos of an empty park bench in remote spaces of nature. When he meets and falls in love with the spirited, unruly Ansa, his ‘bench’ is suddenly filled. But in order to be with her he has to not only overcome his own frailties, but also the impending danger of Ansa’s volatile ex-con ex, and then Ansa herself, a woman prone to impulsiveness and impetuousness.
Things We Do for Love

Patrolman Loyan tries to find his place in the new police department while keeping his friend Warsame, newly released from prison, on the right track. Loyan's ambition is to get into detective training, but his supervisor Jokisalo thinks he'd be better off patrolling the familiar neighbourhoods with his partner Johanna. The patrol gets down to business when they start investigating what looks like a suicide. Antero Päiviö, a professional criminal and racial bigot involved in drug trafficking, has jumped from his balcony. The man who was first pronounced dead suddenly wakes up and is taken to hospital. Loyan finds it hard to believe the man's story and decides to find out the truth at any cost. As the plot unravels, it's hard to know who to trust anymore, when Warsame seems to be up to something behind Loyan's back.
Hyväveli

Half-senile Ossi and his wife travel to celebrate Ossi's 75th birthday at an old people's home where most of their friends are already staying. Just before the festivities Ossi suddenly disappears and goes on tour to 'make an inventory of his life'. He checks into a hotel, poses as a publishing director to lure an aspiring female novelist, next travels to bother his old mistress and her new husband with his surprise visit and obnoxious comments, then goes to see his son for the first time in 34 years just to receive an even colder treatment. Meanwhile, his equally demented wife goes looking for him with a local policeman.
White Marble
Hanna finds a love letter inside a stolen handbag. The letter is from a lover to a married woman. It is none of Hanna’s business, but still she decides to interfere.
Handbag

When 12-year-old Elsi Björkman and her mother Paula return from a week's holiday abroad, Elsi immediately notices that someone has been in her room. She tells her mother about it, but she does not believe her. At the local supermarket Elsi meets Henry, who seems to spend his time returning shopping trolleys. Elsi does not know anything about the boy, who has an irritating habit of appearing from out of nowhere, only to disappear again, as if into thin air. Nevertheless, the children become friends.
My Friend Henry

A middle-aged woman wants a child and starts to look for a suitable father when she doesn't succeed in the plan with her husband.
Lahja

When Marja becomes pregnant as a result of an unauthorized relationship, the man denies the whole relationship. A pregnant young woman is left alone. Marja ends up with an illegal abortion when there are only bad options ahead.
Marja

Bad luck forces two men to resort to Plan B.
Citizens
When romance develops between a driver at the racecourse and his pupil, he has to choose: her, or his wife? But decision-making is not his strong point.
Driver

Eevi's life isn't going the way she would want it to, so she runs away, leaving destruction in her wake. No one will ever say no to her again.