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CinemaPRO -
Saturday, December 13, 2014 - 20:30
Written by:
Hannes Vartiainen, Pekka Veikkolainen
Cast:
Lauri Hynninen, Jonna Uhrman, Eeva Putro, Juha Hippi
Cinematography:
Hannes Vartiainen, Pekka Veikkolainen
Editing:
Hannes Vartiainen, Pekka Veikkolainen
Sound:
Joonatan Portaankorva
Music:
Joonatan Portaankorva
Animation:
Hannes Vartiainen, Pekka Veikkolainen
Producer:
Hannes Vartiainen, Pekka Veikkolainen
Production:
Pohjankonna Oy
Romanian premiere
Using actual emergency call center recordings, EMERGENCY CALLS (nominated for the European Film Awards 2014) creates an intense vision of human suffering and frailty. With an eerie, almost surreal atmosphere, the callers’ faceless voices recount the horrors they are going through. Through a tense musical score and visuals that underline mankind’s microscopic existence in the universe, filmmakers Hannes Vartiainen and Pekka Veikkolainen’s celestial vision constructs a palpable sense of imminent danger. From its midst, the viewer escapes as a spectral witness, privy to the fragility of its own human life. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)
Director:
HANNES VARTIAINEN (b. 1980) studied film directing at the Helsinki Polytechnic from 2000 to 2004. He worked as a freelance director and as a production manager for Kinotar Ltd from 2004 until 2008. PEKKA VEIKKOLAINEN (b. 1982) has studied graphic design at the University of Art and Design Helsinki. He studied animation and painting at the Vysoká škola umelecko-prumyslová in Prague and has worked in the fields of animation and illustration. The two started their own production company in 2008. Their short films (GATES OF LIFE, 2012, THE DEATH OF AN INSECT, 2010, and HANASAARI A, 2009) have been screened and awarded in prestigious film festivals all over the world (Venice, IDFA, Tampere, Clermont-Ferrand, etc.)
Website:
Contact:
hannes[at]pohjankonna[dot]fi, pekka[at]pohjankonna[dot]fi
Festivals, awards:
- Main Prize Finnish Short Film - Tampere International Film Festival 2014
- Best European Short Nominee - European Film Awards 2014
- Sleepwalkers Special Mention - Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2013
- Hamburg International Film Festival 2014
- DOK Leipzig 2013
- Leeds Film Festival 2013
- ZubrOFFka Short Film Festival 2013
- Glasgow Film Festival 2014
- Gent Film Festival 2014
- DOC Point Helsinki 2014
- Go Short Nijmegen 2014
- Documenta Madrid 2014
Curator's comment:
EMERGENCY CALLS deals with real, original recordings. Most of them are emergency calls documented by the Finnish emergency response centre administration. They are cut into pieces and intertwine cleverly. Some stories get closure, others remain open, leaving the viewer to wonder about the denouement. The audio material is matched with seemingly random footage, such as radar signals, blinking lights and cloudy skies that in an abstract way adds meaning to the calls coming in. Furthermore, there are less arbitrary images too, for example of different first-aid vehicles. Also, a regularly recurring element is the NASA space footage from the International Space Station showing the immensity of the Earth as seen from above. The alarm center operators were given a face as well. A tranquil man and woman take turns in reading along the recordings and at times they look directly into the camera. The lighting is slightly eerie and there is no equipment, headset nor computer monitor. The directors deliberately chose to recreate the emergency call center in an unrealistic way to make tangible what it basically all comes down to: just one human being helping another in a matter of life and death. (Gerdien Smit)
EMERGENCY CALLS deals with real, original recordings. Most of them are emergency calls documented by the Finnish emergency response centre administration. They are cut into pieces and intertwine cleverly. Some stories get closure, others remain open, leaving the viewer to wonder about the denouement. The audio material is matched with seemingly random footage, such as radar signals, blinking lights and cloudy skies that in an abstract way adds meaning to the calls coming in. Furthermore, there are less arbitrary images too, for example of different first-aid vehicles. Also, a regularly recurring element is the NASA space footage from the International Space Station showing the immensity of the Earth as seen from above. The alarm center operators were given a face as well. A tranquil man and woman take turns in reading along the recordings and at times they look directly into the camera. The lighting is slightly eerie and there is no equipment, headset nor computer monitor. The directors deliberately chose to recreate the emergency call center in an unrealistic way to make tangible what it basically all comes down to: just one human being helping another in a matter of life and death. (Gerdien Smit)