Experimental short film and installation, 2017
The experimental film Amplifier is a reflection on the presence and significance of history in our everyday surroundings. The work focuses on Helsinki Olympic Stadium, regarded as one of the most beautiful sports buildings in the world. Completed in 1938, for Olympic Games that never took place, it represents a historical paradigm shift and stands as a modernist landmark for utopia and oblivion. As the stadium closed for public due to major renovations, its abandoned athletic arena, shattered benches and bulldozed foundations provoked a chain of conflicting thoughts.
In the film distant voices resonate inside the decayed, desolate monument, where dance, magic and architecture meet in a symbolic encounter. The contrast between body and stone, the passing of time and the relationship between present and past get convoluted in an immersive, sensory and physical experience.
2017, 17:03, SINGLE CHANNEL 2K VIDEO, FILMED ON 8MM CINE FILM
CREDITS
Director and cinematographer: Saara Ekström, editor: Eero Tammi, sound design: Pietu Korhonen, Heikki Kossi / studio: H5 Film Sound Ltd, choreography and dance: Heikki Vienola, magician: Robert Jägerhorn, costume designer: Erika Turunen, mask: Studio Bertjan Pot, foley artist: Heikki Kossi, camera operators (dance): Saara Ekström, Liisa Lounila, Teemu Lehmusruusu, assistant director (dance): Heikki Innanen.
Production support: AVEK / Tuuli Penttinen-Lampisuo, Alfred Kordelin Foundation
SCREENINGS and EXHIBITIONS – a selection:
2021 Liquid Modernity, Gallery Persons Project, Berlin
2021 Cyland Media Lab, Chronotop festival, Vyborg, Russia
2021 Gallery Laikku, Tampere, Finland
2020 Flight IFF, Genoa, Italy
2020 Love & Anarchy IFF, Sight and Sound: screening with Heikki Kossi, Finland
2019 Videonale, Bonn, Germany
2019 IFF Pacific Meridian, Vladivostok, Russia
2019 Suomalaisen elokuvan festivaali, Finland
2018 Yle Areena and Yle Teema, Finnish television culture broadcasts
2018 XV DocumentaMadrid, Madrid, Spain
2018 AV-arkki, ISFF Oberhausen, Germany
2018 IFF Pacific Meridian, Vladivostok, Russia
2018 22nd International Video Festival, Videomedeja, Novi Sad, Serbia
2018 Pori Film Festival, Finland
2018 Pori Art Museum, Finland
2017 Gallery Hippolyte, Helsinki, Finland