Aho & Soldan

In 18th century Eastern Finland, the eponymous farmer Juha raises and then marries the orphaned Marja, only for her to fall prey to the advances of visiting trader Shemeikka. Hailed as a classic of Nordic cinema, Juha is the only full-length feature film produced by Aho & Soldan.

A programme of commercially produced films for trade and industry which demonstrate the duo's proclivity for presenting perhaps otherwise fairly dry subject material in a visually engaging fashion.

Heikki Aho’s daughter Claire is the unifying figure for this second programme of shorts. Followed by Tempo, a silently lyrical documentary of the paper-making process in Finland, which presents this large-scale manufacturing process as an object of aesthetic appreciation.

A fascinatingly layered essay film that charts a century in Finnish history, using the prism of the Aho-Soldan family to explore concepts of time and memory, of national identity, and of the way the arts both reflect and enrich a society.