Return to tiff.’s home page

Lapland Odyssey

Lapland Odyssey

Napapiirin sankarit

Dome Karukoski

  • Country: Finland, Sweden, Ireland
  • Year: 2010
  • Language: Finnish, English, Swedish, Russian
  • Producer: Aleksi Bardy, Dominic Wright, Martin Persson, Jacqueline Kerrin
  •  
  • Screenplay: Pekko Pesonen
  • Runtime: 90
  • Programmes:

Three unemployed young men set off on a desperate journey to locate a digital conversion box in the north of Finland. Wildy funny, Dome Karukoski's Lapland Odyssey is a Finnish cousin to Harold and Kumar and Fubar.

screening times

    • Friday September 10
    • 9:30:00 PM
    • AMC 7
    • Saturday September 11
    • 11:30:00 AM
    • AMC 10
    • Sunday September 19
    • 1:00:00 PM
    • AMC 7

Note: indicates Premium Screening.

official description

A not-too-distant cousin of Fubar and Harold and Kumar, Dome Karukoski’s raucous road comedy is set in Finland’s far north, where the sun is an infrequent visitor and jobs are even scarcer. The environment doesn’t exactly breed ambition – favourite pastimes for young men include sleeping, drinking, beating video games in order to unlock nudie pictures, moaning about the lack of opportunities and drinking and sleeping some more.

Janne is especially skilled at sleeping. In fact, for the last couple of years he’s chosen to sleep-in rather than fulfill a promise of buying a television converter for his girlfriend, Irina. This hasn’t bothered her much, but today turns out to be different. When Irina finds out that Janne spent the money for the converter on drinks with his friends Raha and Kapu, she offers an ultimatum: get it by first thing tomorrow morning or get out.

Janne springs into action, badgering Raha to take his controlling mother’s car and get them to the nearest town. En route, they encounter a water polo team comprised of killer lesbians, drunken Russians desperate to kill a reindeer, homicidal cabbies, hypothermia and Little Mikko, Irina’s former flame and the only financially successful man in the village.

But as with all good picaresque narratives, the real conflict is internal. Can Janne swallow his pride and ask for help when he needs it? Can he ever show enough maturity to commit to a future with Irina? Lampooning prejudices and assumptions about Finns – and their big bad neighbours to the east – Lapland Odyssey runs at a breakneck pace, full of twists, turns and unexpected catastrophes. It may also be the hippest, freshest comedy to emerge from Finland in years.

Steve Gravestock

director bio

Dome Karukoski was born in Nicosia, Cyprusand moved to Finlandin his early childhood. He made the short films Käytösrangaistus (03) and Verenperintö,before directing the award-winning features Beautyand the Bastard (05), The Home ofDark Butterflies (07) and ForbiddenFruit (09). Lapland Odyssey (10) is his latest featurefilm.

full credits

Principal Cast: Timo Lavikainen, Pamela Tola, Kari Ketonen, Miia Nuutila
Producer: Aleksi Bardy, Dominic Wright, Martin Persson, Jacqueline Kerrin
Cinematographer: Pini Hellstedt
Editor: Harri Ylönen
Sound: Christian Holm
Music: Lance Hogan
Production Designer: Pirjo Rossi
   
International Sales Agent: The Yellow Affair
Production Company: Helsinki-filmi Oy
.
Shopping Cart
 

    Share This

    • Digg
    • Share

    Like This

    film stills and media

     
    Pause Slideshow