Helsinki is the capital and most populous city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About 675,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.25 million in the capital region and 1.58 million in the metropolitan area. As the most populous urban area in Finland, it is the country's most significant centre for politics, education, finance, culture, and research. Helsinki is 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 360 kilometres (220 mi) north of Riga, Latvia, 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 kilometres (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Helsinki has significant historical connections with these four cities.
Aki Olavi Kaurismäki is a Finnish film director and screenwriter. He is best known for the award-winning Drifting Clouds (1996), The Man Without a Past (2002), Le Havre (2011), The Other Side of Hope (2017) and Fallen Leaves (2023), as well as Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989). He has been described as Finland's best-known film director.
The music of Finland can be roughly divided into folk music, classical and contemporary art music, and contemporary popular music.
Paavo Allan Engelbert Berglund was a Finnish conductor and violinist.
Joona Jasper Pääkkönen is a Finnish film actor.
The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a Finnish broadcast orchestra based in Helsinki, and the orchestra of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle). The orchestra primarily gives concerts at the Helsinki Music Centre. Primary funding comes from television licence fees from the Finnish population.
The Unknown Soldier is a Finnish film from 1985 directed by Rauni Mollberg. It is based on the best selling Finnish novel by the same name written by Väinö Linna. It is the second film adaptation of Linna's novel, the first one being the 1955 film of the same title, directed by Edvin Laine. Third film adaptation of the same novel was released in 2017, directed by Aku Louhimies.
The Finnish cinema has a long history, with the first public screenings starting almost as early as modern motion picture technology was invented. It took over a decade before the first Finnish film was produced and screened in 1907. After these first steps of Finnish cinema, the progress was very slow. After 1907 there were two periods when no Finnish films were produced. This was partly caused by the political situation, as Finland held a status as an autonomous part of the Russian Empire and was thus influenced by the worldwide political situation.
The Winter War is a 1989 Finnish war film directed by Pekka Parikka, and based on the novel Talvisota by Antti Tuuri. It is set in the Winter War and tells the story of a Finnish infantry regiment from Southern Ostrobothnia fighting on the Karelian Isthmus, focusing mainly on a platoon of reservists from Kauhava. The film was released in Finland and Sweden on 30 November 1989, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Winter War, and in the United States in December 1989.
The Barbarians is a 1987 sword and sorcery film directed by Ruggero Deodato and starring the Barbarian Brothers, Richard Lynch and Eva La Rue.
STX Finland Oy, formerly Aker Yards Oy, was a Finnish shipbuilding company operating three shipyards in Finland, in Turku, Helsinki and Rauma, employing some 2,500 people. It was part of STX Europe, a group of international shipbuilding companies owned by the South Korean STX Corporation.
Pirjo Irene Honkasalo is a Finnish film director who has also worked as a cinematographer, film editor, producer, screenwriter and actress. In 1980 she co-directed Flame Top with Pekka Lehto, with whom she worked earlier and later as well. The film was chosen for the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. In the 1990s she focused on feature documentaries such as "The Trilogy of the Sacred and the Satanic". Honkasalo returned to fiction with Fire-Eater (1998) and Concrete Night (2013), both of which were written by Pirkko Saisio. Concrete Night won six Jussi Awards in 2014, among them the Jussi for the Best Direction and the Jussi for the Best Film. Its world premiere was at the Toronto International Film Festival in Masters series.
The Last Temptations is an opera in two acts by Joonas Kokkonen to a libretto by Lauri Kokkonen. Along with Leevi Madetoja's Pohjalaisia and Aarre Merikanto's Juha, it is considered one of the most important Finnish operas. The opera deals with the life of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century folk preacher Paavo Ruotsalainen. Kokkonen worked on the opera for 16 years before finishing the work. It was premiered in Helsinki by the Finnish National Opera in 1975.
The Figurine: Araromire is a 2009 Nigerian supernatural suspense thriller film written by Kemi Adesoye, produced and directed by Kunle Afolayan, who also stars in the film as one of the main protagonists. It also stars Ramsey Nouah and Omoni Oboli.
Secret Service of the Imperial Court, also known as Police Pool of Blood, is a 1984 Hong Kong wuxia film produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio and starring Bryan Leung. The film is strikingly similar in style and plot to the 1988 ATV's The Court Secret Agent (錦衣衛), and the 2010 film 14 Blades, which starred Donnie Yen, may have been a remake of it.
Finland competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia from 7 to 23 February 2014. The Finnish team consisted of 103 competitors who participated in alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, ice hockey, ski jumping, snowboarding, and speed skating.
Kira Jääskeläinen is a Finnish-Polish documentary film director.
Pétur Sakari is an international concert organist from Finland.
Parnasso is a literary magazine published in Helsinki, Finland. The magazine has been in circulation since 1951. It is among the most respected literary magazines in the country.
Lipton Cockton in the Shadows of Sodoma is a 1995 Finnish dystopian crime film written and directed by Jari Halonen. It tells the story of a private investigator living in a near-future federal state who begins to investigate unexplained explosion deaths. The film stars Jorma Tommila.
