Espoo Ciné interviews a new generation of Finnish filmmakers. The third in the series is Lauri-Matti Parppei, who discusses his new film and the future of Finnish cinema.
You have a background in underground music and are currently the singer and guitarist in the band Musta Valo. In what concrete ways does this background show in your debut feature A Light That Never Goes Out (2025)?
In this film, most of the music stuff, for example, is mine or my friends’. Our lived experience in that world and those circles is very present. I composed all the music myself—if you can even call it composing—since it uses blenders and all sorts of junk, and the actors played it themselves. For me, making the music and tightly integrating it into the film was a big part of the screenwriting process.
Your film could be called a “different kind of” band movie compared to classics like A Long Hot Summer (1999). The music in your film is quite niche—noise—but presented in a fun and approachable way: the viewer might be inspired to try and see what sound an electric toothbrush makes. How did you end up making a film about this kind of music in this way?
When we started making music in Rauma, we had tons of enthusiasm but not much skill, so it naturally became somewhat experimental. My roots are in fiercely independent art-making where we made all the decisions ourselves. We had our own festival because no one would book us, and our own little record label, which always lost money but still put out our albums. However, now you have to beg the establishment to make the art you want. So it felt natural to draw a parallel between classical music and more hierarchical forms of art, and the Rauma underground scene, which, when we were in it, basically consisted of me and ten friends.
Why should people come see A Light That Never Goes Out at Espoo Ciné?
You’ll hear Rauma music you never thought you needed in your life. And honestly, a good reason is that it might inspire you to start a band. By the following week, you just might have it.
The film premiered in the ACID section at Cannes. What was the Cannes experience like?
Pretty intense because I usually avoid big crowds and mass events. We were in the ACID section, which was perfect for us because it’s smaller and scrappier—and I liked that. It felt exactly right for us. It was surreal being there after thinking I was just making a small Rauma-based film for a small audience—and then suddenly, we’re on the Riviera. Thanks to that, we even got a small theatrical release in France, which made the whole journey even more surreal. But the most amazing thing was realizing that a story which is not autobiographical, but based on the memories, experiences, and lives belonging to me and my friends, could transcend cultural and language barriers.
How do you see the future of Finnish cinema?
Hopefully bright. I see a lot of stories worth telling in our culture, and in recent years it’s been really encouraging to see the quality of Finnish films rise and the growing courage to tell authentic stories. Hopefully, the cultural funding cuts will at least slow down so that professional filmmaking can continue—but if it doesn’t, I hope filmmaking can become a more communal form of art. I don’t always want to approach cultural products through money, industry, or a professional lens, but I do understand that this is also an industry—and yes, it is nice to get paid.
What kinds of films would you like to see made in Finland?
I wish there was more trust in what we see around us. Not necessarily kitchen-sink realism, but more depictions of shared realities. I would like to see more courage in everything, but whether even we filmmakers have that courage is another question. To be fair to the funders, I have to say that I didn’t feel our film was restricted much at all. There’s no score music in the film—only live performances by the actors in front of the camera—and we even went so far as to have one scene where the violin part was literally played behind the wall during the shoot. No one really stopped us, even in our most absurd ideas. We had a flashing dog in the film—someone asked once or twice why it’s there, but it just is, and it stayed in until the end! I believe there is support and courage on the funding side for bold storytelling—but maybe we filmmakers need to be bolder too.
What kinds of films do you want to make in the future?
I feel like I’m always working with the same themes. I want to tell stories about friendship and loneliness, and often there are also themes related to gender and gender roles. Right now, we’re making a vampire film set in Kokemäki in 2001, again with producer Ilona Tolmunen. I hope I can continue working on projects as self-driven as this last one. I want to depict a world that is also comforting and hopeful, even though my work often deals with depression and loneliness. I hope people leave the film thinking, “Maybe I could start a band too, even if none of us know how to play.” I always hope to spark a little flame of hope in people.
What does European cinema mean to you?
When I first got into films, like many others, it was mainly through mainstream American cinema. But later, the experiences that showed me what cinema could be as an art form mostly came through European film. It’s where I’ve been able to experience the most unexpected things within cinematic art.
Where do your films fit within European cinema? Or are they distinctly Finnish? A Light That Never Goes Out is perhaps distinctly Rauma-esque—or is it?
When we started making the film, we consciously avoided the kinds of choices we had learned from Finnish cinema. Even though the film is set in Rauma and the dialogue is in the Rauma dialect, we aimed to draw our visual and narrative language more from the canon of European cinema. Later, we were selected for the Les Arcs Industry Village's Work in Progress programme in the Alps, where 12 European films in development showcased their clips. After seeing all those European films in a row, and then watching our own clips, I thought: This is such a Finnish film. Maybe we ended up actually peeling back layers to reveal something very Finnish, while we thought we were making something very European. But that was a lovely realisation too. I’m actually very happy about my Rauma roots and being Finnish—I don’t want to make French cinema. I want to make Finnish films, from my own culture and perspective.
A Light That Never Goes Out will be screened at Espoo Ciné on Thursday, August 28. This fresh and heartfelt debut feature is a love song to creativity, music, and friendship—unafraid to explore new sounds with an open mind. Starring Samuel Kujala, Anna Rosaliina Kauno, Camille Auer, and Kaisa-Leena Koskenkorva.
Text and photo: Emma Petäjäaho