Plot
Visa Vuorio (Tobias Zilliacus), a 35-year-old team leader at the Helsinki city gardening department, is suffering from a terminal neurological disease and only has a few months to live. Because of this, he is a member of a therapeutical support group for people suffering from terminal diseases. Visa's life changes when a young female reporter, Hanna Manninen (Helena Vierikko), arrives at the support group offering to write a series of articles about Visa's life story.
While visiting the doctor, Visa hears there's been a mix-up of samples, and he is in fact perfectly healthy. However, he does not want to tell this to either Hanna or his girlfriend Riia (Susanna Mikkonen), as he wants to avoid shocking them, and doesn't want to lose the experience of having an article series written about him. He only confides in his best friend Harri (Jarkko Pajunen), who unknown to him is in love with Riia.
Visa and Hanna travel to Copenhagen together, and they fall in love with each other there, but don't dare to confess it to each other yet. Back in Helsinki, the support group organises a great party, where Visa is invited as a speaker. On stage, he admits being perfectly healthy and confesses his love to Hanna. However, Hanna is shocked by this, and turns him down. Instead, Hanna's ex-boyfriend Ilkka seeks a new relationship with her, and proposes to her in a restaurant in Porvoo. Visa takes desperate measures to stop this, but at the restaurant door, he realises he is in fact sick after all, and passes out on the street.
Visa is taken to a hospital in Helsinki, but he takes the first chance to escape and crash Hanna's and Ilkka's wedding to admit to being sick after all and confess his love to Hanna. He kisses Hanna, and almost immediately, falls dead on the ground.
Terminal illness or end-stage disease is a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and is reasonably expected to result in the death of the patient. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as cancer, dementia or advanced heart disease than for injury. In popular use, it indicates a disease that will progress until death with near absolute certainty, regardless of treatment. A patient who has such an illness may be referred to as a terminal patient, terminally ill or simply as being terminal. There is no standardized life expectancy for a patient to be considered terminal, although it is generally months or less. Life expectancy for terminal patients is a rough estimate given by the physician based on previous data and does not always reflect true longevity. An illness which is lifelong but not fatal is a chronic condition.
The Cudgel War was a 1596/97 peasant uprising in Finland. The name of the uprising derives from the fact that the peasants armed themselves with various blunt weapons, such as cudgels, flails, and maces, as they were seen as the most efficient weapons against their heavily armoured enemies. The yeomen also had swords, some firearms, and two cannons at their disposal. Their opponents, the troops of Clas Eriksson Fleming, were professional, heavily armed and armoured men-at-arms.
Juha Harri "Junnu" Vainio, also known as Juha "Watt" Vainio was a Finnish lyricist, singer, composer and teacher. With the lyrics or music to over 2,400 songs to his name, Vainio is one of Finland's most prolific lyricists along with Sauvo Puhtila, Reino Helismaa and Vexi Salmi. Vainio enjoyed a short professional career as a teacher at Kymenranta Primary School.
Spy Games is a 1999 film directed by Ilkka Järvi-Laturi, and starring Bill Pullman, Irène Jacob, and Bruno Kirby. Written by Patrick Amos, the film is about a jaded CIA agent and a young and beautiful SVR agent fighting to save the world, their lives, and their secret love in post Cold War Helsinki. Filmed in Helsinki, Finland and New York City, the movie incorporates elements of romance, action, and thriller genres. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September 1999.
Gatorade Center is a multi-functional indoor arena in the district of Artukainen in Turku, Finland. Opened in November 1990, it can hold up to 11,820 spectators for ice hockey games.
The Finlandia Hall is a congress and event venue in the centre of Helsinki on the Töölönlahti Bay, owned by the City of Helsinki. The building, which was designed by architect Alvar Aalto, was completed in 1971. Every detail in the building is designed by Aalto. The designs were completed in 1962, with building taking place between 1967 and 1971. The Congress Wing was designed in 1970 and built in 1973–1975. In 2011, the building was expanded with new exhibition and meeting facilities. Finlandia Hall is known as the venue for the OSCE Summit held in August 1975, attended by 35 world leaders, including the leader of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev, and the President of the United States, Gerald Ford.
Heikki Ritavuori, was a Finnish lawyer, a politician from the National Progressive Party, a member of the Parliament of Finland and Minister of the Interior. He was the closest colleague of President K. J. Ståhlberg and was Minister of the Interior in J. H. Vennola's first and second cabinets from 1919 to 1922 for a total of 526 days. Heikki Ritavuori is a unique figure in Finland's political history because he is not remembered for his life's work, but instead for its end. Minister Ritavuori was shot dead at the door to his home in Helsinki in February 1922.
Idols is a Finnish reality-television singing competition that airs on Nelonen. It debuted in the summer of 2003, and went on to become one of the most popular shows on Finnish television. Part of the Idol franchise, it originated from the reality program Pop Idol created by British entertainment executive Simon Fuller, which was first aired in 2001 in the United Kingdom.
Night on Earth is a 1991 art comedy-drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It is a collection of five vignettes, taking place during the same night, concerning the temporary bond formed between taxi driver and passenger in five cities: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. The action in the vignettes takes place at the same time, moving from Los Angeles in the United States to Helsinki, Finland. The scene in each city appears to occur later and later in the night due to the changing time zones. Jarmusch wrote the screenplay in about eight days, and the choice of certain cities was largely based on the actors with whom he wanted to work. The soundtrack of the same name is by Tom Waits.
Kinamand is a 2005 Danish-Chinese comedy drama film that deals with the Chinese immigrant experience in Denmark and marriages of convenience.
Ilkka Aulis Hanski was a Finnish ecologist at the University of Helsinki, Finland. The Metapopulation Research Center led by Hanski, until his death, has been nominated as a Center of Excellence by the Academy of Finland. The group studies species living in fragmented landscapes and attempts to advance metapopulation ecology research. Metapopulation ecology itself studies populations of plants and animals which are separated in space by occupying patches.
Ilkka Armas Mikael Kanerva was a Finnish politician and a member of the Parliament of Finland. He was born in Lokalahti, now a part of Uusikaupunki in Southwest Finland. He was the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2007 to 2008. Kanerva was a member of the National Coalition Party.
Black Ice is a 2007 Finnish drama film written and directed by Petri Kotwica. Produced as a Finnish-German joint production, it stars actors Outi Mäenpää, Martti Suosalo and Ria Kataja in a twisted love triangle.
A deathbed confession is an admittance or confession when someone is nearing death, or on their "death bed". This confession may help alleviate any guilt, regrets, secrets, or sins the dying person may have had in their life. These confessions can occur because the dying want to live the last moments of their life free of any secrets they have been holding in for a portion - or entirety - of their life. Or, if religious, the person may perhaps believe they will be forgiven by a higher power before they die, allowing them entrance to a better place, such as Heaven, after death. A deathbed confession can be given to anyone, but a family member is usually with their loved one during this time. Doctors and nurses may also hear a deathbed confession because they are often present in a person’s last moments.
Counsel's Opinion is a 1933 British romantic comedy film starring Henry Kendall and Binnie Barnes. It was one of three films directed in Britain in the early 1930s by Canadian-American Allan Dwan and was an early production from Alexander Korda's London Films. Counsel's Opinion was based on a 1931 Gilbert Wakefield play and was remade, again by London Films, in 1938 as The Divorce of Lady X starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon.
Imaginaerum is a 2012 Finnish-Canadian fantasy film co-written and directed by Stobe Harju. It was developed with and features music from Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish's seventh studio album of the same name; Nightwish's keyboardist and songwriter Tuomas Holopainen co-wrote the film. Imaginaerum, which is produced by Markus Selin from Solar Films Inc. along with Nightwish, is the feature film debut of director Stobe Harju.
Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo is a 2013 Fuji TV Japanese soap opera, starring Honoka Miki and Yuki Furukawa in the lead roles. It aired from March 29, 2013, to July 19, 2013 with 16 episodes. In early October 2013, it was announced on the official website of Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo that there is a green light for a second season. It was announced that a special titled Love in Okinawa would air on September 12, 2014. The second season began airing on November 24, 2014. Anime streaming site Crunchyroll acquired the streaming rights on January 6, 2014. It is a remake of the Taiwanese drama It Started with a Kiss.
Carl Fredrik Ralph Alexander Enckell was a Finnish diplomat.
Ilkka Raimo Olavi “Emu” Lehtinen was a record dealer in Helsinki, Finland, a founder and the chief executive officer of the record store Digelius Music. According to Helsingin Sanomat, Lehtinen was “a local guru for people who would be curious to listen to music irrespective of genres, and a person with whose help customers would find wonderful new experiences starting from clean slate.” According to another Helsinki newspaper, Hufvudstadsbladet, Lehtinen was “a living legend in Finnish music circles”.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Finland has resulted in 1,171,034 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 5,012 deaths.
