Runokuu & Espoo Ciné: Failed Emptiness
In their cinematic-poetic collaboration, Mika Taanila and Harry Salmenniemi update the depiction of modern alienation to a 2020s world that vibrates and melts. The screening is organized in collaboration with the Runokuu Festival. After the screening, Mika Taanila and Harry Salmenniemi will discuss the creative friction between film and literature with Tytti Rantanen, Executive Director of Espoo Ciné.
TIME: Sunday 25 Aug at 1:00 PM
OSOITE: Kino Tapiola, Mäntyviita 2, 02110 Espoo
FILM: The Failed Emptiness | 65 min. | dir. Mika Taanila | No dialogue, Finnish intertitles with English subtitles
ENTRY: Ticket sales start on 6 Aug – ticket price 12€
Taanila and Salmenniemi depicted various strains and difficulties pertaining to air travel in their first film collaboration, The Tectonic Plate (2016), that was produced completely without a camera. Their newest film The Failed Emptiness (2024), filmed solely with a thermal camera, carries the portrayal of modern alienation into the new decade. The Scandinavian sleekness and fluidity known from interior magazines clash with a vibrating and melting world. A humidifier buzzes in the corner; a robot vacuum moves without disruption. The film’s human character (Ariane Tretow) performs her gymnastics mechanically and neatly, like a character in a video game. The music by Nika Son and Klara Lewis tunes into urban dizziness.
The smoothness is countered by the diverse roughness of stone, demanding the climber to grip firmly. Salmenniemi’s assertively absurd texts further erode the smoothness, stretching it to the limits of strangeness and disturbance: “My experiences can be described in any way / In any case, they have been.”
– Tytti Rantanen
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The multidisciplinary and international Runokuu – Poetry Moon literary festival delights poetry enthusiasts in Helsinki and its surroundings, starting with the Night of the Arts on 15 August. The festival culminates in a four-day closing celebration at Tekstin talo on 22–25 August, 2024.
