SCREENING SERIES
A Season in Dialogue with Pekka Halonen
13.11-27.11.2025
This Autumn, we are back with a series of screenings as part of our Season in dialogue with Pekka Halonen, in parallel with Petit Palais’ exhibition Pekka Halonen, An ode to Finland.
Through the films we delve into profound human queries that nevertheless connect us with nature and the rest of the living: facing change and uprooting, yet remaining alive; the integration of oppositions. What does it mean to belong, to someone else, to the world, to oneself?
As always on screening evenings, our gallery and Café Maa will remain open until the film starts at 7pm. Enjoy a drink or a snack before the film! Buy your tickets from our online shop, 5 euros per ticket.
PROGRAMME:
Thursday 13 November at 7pm
The White Reindeer (1952)
Valkoinen peura
Directed by Erik Blomberg
67 min, in Finnish with French subtitles
Inspired by a Sámi legend, Valkoinen Peura is the first feature film by Erik Blomberg. In the snowy landscapes of Sápmi (Lapland), Pirita is a young spouse saddened by the long absences of her husband, a reindeer farmer. Abandoned, she consults a fortune teller who reveals her true nature: she is a witch. The young woman transforms herself into a majestic white reindeer, and at nightfall she attracts men into a deadly trap.
→ Click here to book your tickets.
Thursday 20 November at 7pm
In the Fields of Dreams (1940)
Unelma karjamajalla
Directed by Teuvo Tulio
108 mn, in Finnish with French subtitles
In the Fields of Dreams by Teuvo Tulio is an adaption of a Swedish theatre play, which Tulio transforms into a battlefield between heaven and earth, innocence and depravation, sin and expiation. The film opposes two brothers, one a christian and the other a deficient pagan, as well as two women, one pure and innocent and the other a dubious seducer. From these oppositions Tulio’s melodrama unfolds, competing with unforgettable images of nature.
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Thursday 27 November at 7pm
Juha (1998)
Juha
Directed by Aki Kaurismäki
78 min, in Finnish with French subtitles
Juha and Marja are a married peasant couple, whose everyday life is disturbed by the sudden apparition of Shemeikka, a city man. Marja is swept away by the seducer and subsequently Juha seeks revenge, with brutal consequences. Juha is an intense love triangle filled with details and depth of emotions, in which, unusually enough, an understanding of all three parties is given.
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Curated by Irmeli Debarle.
Irmeli Debarle is the specialist on Finnish cinema in France. A lifelong student of literature, languages, art history and cinema, she completed a thesis on the director Teuvo Tulio in 2013. Having lived in France for almost 50 years, she has decided to promote Finnish cinema, which is still little known internationally, always guided by the same will: the desire to share. Irmeli Debarle contributes to the visibility of Finnish filmmakers by translating their works and by helping to screen their films at various festivals in France. Among her many projects is La Finlande en 3 films festival, which she has been organising every year for the last 16 years at the Reflet Médicis cinema in Paris, with the support of the Finnish Film Foundation. She translates Finnish films and works closely with filmmakers such as Aki Kaurismäki and Markku Lehmuskallio, among others.