Sodankylä Forever

The Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arctic circle — where the sun never sets. Founded by Aki and Mika Kaurismäki along with Anssi Mänttäri and Peter von Bagh in 1985, the festival has played host to an international who’s who of directors and each day begins with a two-hour discussion. To mark the festival’s silver anniversary, festival director Peter von Bagh edited together highlights from these dialogues to create an epic four-part choral history of cinema drawn from the anecdotes, insights, and wisdom of his all-star cast: Coppola, Fuller, Forman, Chabrol, Corman, Demy, Kieslowski, Kiarostami, Varda, Oliveira, Erice, Rouch, Gilliam, Jancso — and 64 more. Ranging across innumerable topics (war, censorship, movie stars, formative influences, America, neorealism) these voices, many now passed away, engage in a personal dialogue across the years that’s by turns charming, profound, hilarious and moving.

0

273 min

Cast

Peter von Bagh

as Self

Robert Parrish

as Self

Roy Ward Baker

as Self

Víctor Erice

as Self

Francis Ford Coppola

as Self

Samuel Fuller

as Self

Sergio Sollima

as Self

Miloš Forman

as Self

John Boorman

as Self

Roger Corman

as Self

Jean Rouch

as Self

Manoel de Oliveira

as Self

Claude Chabrol

as Self

Jacques Demy

as Self

Krzysztof Kieślowski

as Self

Abbas Kiarostami

as Self

Terry Gilliam

as Self

Miklós Jancsó

as Self

Jean-Pierre Léaud

as Self

João Bénard da Costa

as Self

G. Carbera Infante

as Self

José Luis Guarner

as Self

Jonathan Rosenbaum

as Self

Jean Douchet

as Self

Raymond Durgnat

as Self

Pertti Lumirae

as Self

Satu Laaksonen

as Self

Jonathan Demme

as Self

Paolo Taviani

as Self

Agnieszka Holland

as Self

Andrei German

as Self

André de Toth

as Self

Krzysztof Zanussi

as Self

Monte Hellman

as Self

Dušan Makavejev

as Self

Gian Vittorio Baldi

as Self

Carroll Ballard

as Self

Jim Jarmusch

as Self

Andrey Smirnov

as Self

Denys Arcand

as Self

Vincent Sherman

as Self

Luc Dardenne

as Self

Jean-Pierre Dardenne

as Self

Vittorio De Seta

as Self

Francesco Rosi

as Self

Bob Rafelson

as Self

Dino Risi

as Self

Chantal Akerman

as Self

Director

Peter von Bagh