Saturday, April 25, 2009

Jorma Uotinen, 1988

(Jorma Uotinen, Eeli Aalto and Claude Naville. Photo: Jorma Karhunen)

In 1988 I had the opportunity to make a TV film on Jorma Uotinen. He had emerged as a notable international dancer and choreographer. The timing was excellent for making a film, as his repertoire still included a distinctive, personal work of dance called “The Cry”. Fragments of it provided the thread for the entire film.

Even better, a major production called “B12” was under construction, a dance theatre implemented by the Helsinki City Theatre dance crew, the story of a closed ward, the anguish and distress of a human soul. This work was like a forecast for decades to come, until today and even tomorrow. We were following the tough rehearsals for a couple of weeks and managed to show the viewers what it is like to make a work of dance.

As an icing on the cake, a public service media should also have recorded the finished work similarly to “The Cry”, but YLE [The Finnish Broadcasting Company] did not have a sufficient capacity for that. But at least we managed to put together a fine film of a fine artist, dancer Jorma Uotinen and his group.

“Jorma Uotinen directing” in the Living Archives

Identifiers: Jorma Uotinen

Sunday, April 19, 2009

My Vyborg in 1991

Here I am watching the old Vyborg in 1991 from Patterinmäki, where I used to play as a child. I could not foresee how significant my return to childhood would be. After all, it had been cut away from the home town when the Winter War broke out when I was eight years old. Luckily, I had the opportunity to make the TV film “My Vyborg” about my memories. On one of our filming trips, my friend Anssi Mellblom took a fine black-and-white series of pictures of me.

My Vyborg

Identifiers: Vyborg

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Juha Väätäinen in the Scenery of Mount Kenya in 1971

This is the way I remember Juha Väätäinen when he was training in Kenya in 1971. He had  restored Finnish long-distance running to a “gold standard” by winning the European championships in both the 10 km and 5 km races. Hannu Leminen who was the TV2 chief at that time hired me to make a documentary on Juha. Why me and not some sports editor? Because Juha did not like them. We two artists got along just fine. The film was shown around the world and it was even awarded at the Zagreb Film Festival. The European Champion.

I recorded Juha's “adventures” which were published by the name of “Kierros vielä” [Another Round] by Kirjayhtymä in 1972.

(Photo: Jorma Karhunen)

Identifiers: Juha Väätäinen