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With its stationary long-shots of domestic life, “Family Time” is like the “Paranormal Activity” of dysfunctional-holiday-gathering movies: There’s a sense of spying on people who don’t realize they’re under a microscope. Of course, Tia Kouvo’s debut feature is duly scripted, directed and professionally acted. But her approach is so effectively low-key, you might occasionally forget you’re watching a staged fiction.

There’s no new ground broken by this seriocomedy of three generations in one ordinary clan enduring each other over Christmas, then glimpsed in their separate lives afterward. Yet the canny level of observation — at once casual, caustic and empathetic — makes for a film that adds up to considerably more than the sum of its seemingly offhand parts. Finland’s Oscar submission won Jussi Awards for best film, direction and screenplay, and while it seems unlikely to make a splash internationally, it marks Kouvo as a promising talent.

We sat with director Tia Kouvo to talk about her directorial debut, Family Time, which premiered in the Encounters program of the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival and selected as Finland’s official submission for consideration in the category of Best International Feature at the 97th Academy Awards. Touching on the short film project which provided the initial impetus to expand it into a feature, Kouvo talks about shooting in her grandparents’ home alongside her returning Dp Jesse Jalonen to craft the film’s intimate mise en scene. Kouvo also explains specific soundtrack selections and cinematic influences for her first film, which she describes as a more realistic film about familial Christmas traditions, but overall, a hopeful one.…...