Elina Hyvärinen

The Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022 turned the European worldview upside down. In Parikkala, a small town in Eastern Finland near the Russian border, this soon becomes very real as the iron curtain lowers again on the Finno-Russian border. The locals are faced both with a future that is unknown and the heavy historical baggage of the borderland.

When Finland and the USSR signed a peace agreement in 1944, not everyone found it a reason to celebrate. As many as 420 thousand Karelians had to leave their homes and move into the land within the Finnish borders. Not until the collapse of the communist behemoth could they make a symbolic return to their homeland. The documentary captures the encounter of the present with the past. The point of reference for archival photos and recordings is a trip made by contemporary Karelians to the land of their ancestors.

Mirna's mother died from ovarian cancer when she was just a child. Now she has been diagnosed with a tumor of the ovary. Because of this she also ends up processing her mother's death.