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Acclaimed cellist Lukas Stasevskij pursues his dream of cinema with documentary “My Ukraine,” currently in development and set to make a bow next week during film industry event Finnish Film Affair.

The film is produced by Tero Tamminen (East Films) and Ilona Tolmunen (Made), also behind Aino Suni’s “Heartbeast,” recently snapped up by France’s Wayna Pitch.

“When Lukas approached Tero Tamminen and then they called me, we were both immediately interested,” Tolmunen tells Variety, praising Stasevskij’s “universal” story about finding one’s identity and understanding the meaning of roots.

Bucha Concert hall after Russia. What would Rachmaninoff think about his nation who does this? My hero brother Lukas Stasevskij playing J.S.Bach in the ruins. I call on all my colleagues around the world, after...

Finland’s leading film festival Love & Anarchy is ready to celebrate its 35th edition, free of Covid restrictions and finally able to focus on the films and the audience, says executive director Anna Möttölä in Helsinki. But it has been a bittersweet time, marked by the loss of Jean-Luc Godard and Lina Wertmüller back in December, whose 1973 film gave the event its name.

While Wertmüller will be celebrated with a screening of “Seven Beauties,” another tragedy is on the team’s mind: the sudden death of Charlbi Dean, the star of Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner – and the festival’s opening film – “Triangle of Sadness.”

“It will be a memorial screening,” says artistic director Pekka Lanerva. Dean’s co-star, Zlatko Burić, is expected to attend.

Anna Möttölä, Pekka Lanerva

“All our thoughts go to her family and to the cast and crew. To have such a promising career,...

Helsinki-based helmer-writer Aino Suni makes her feature debut with “Heartbeast,” a queer love story with a dark twist about a Finnish teen whose mother moves her to France. It world premieres in Nordic competition at this year’s Göteborg Festival.

What inspired the story?

Suni: The documentary “Never Again” I made about Finnish rapper Mercedes Bentso definitely gave me a lot of inspiration. Mercedes Bentso, one of my closest friends today, uses rap as a way to express even the darkest emotions, fears, wants and the most forbidden fantasies, as does Elina, the protagonist of “Heartbeast.”

It’s personally important for me to tell stories about queer people. It’s part of my own self-expression and answers my own need to see women loving women on the screen. But the fact that the story has a dark quality has nothing to do with being queer. It could be any kind...