Scholar, author, teacher, critic, commentator, and remarkably prolific filmmaker Peter von Bagh (b. 1943) holds legendary status in his native Finland and in the world of cinema at large. Famous for writings that embrace film studies (his texts on filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki are especially well known), Von Bagh has also published nearly forty works about his homeland undefined including Song of Finland, awarded a Finlandia Prize for nonfiction. Using mostly archival materials, his layered films construct a social landscape that is local and specific, yet somehow universal and timeless, and his impassioned work for the preservation of film culture is renowned (he serves as artistic director for two unique annual film forums undefined one in the north of Finland, and the other in Bologna, Italy). The series is a collaboration with the Finnish Film Foundation, Finnish Film Archive, Embassy of Finland, and the National Portrait Gallery.
September 6 at 2:00 McEvoy Auditorium, National Portrait Gallery
A poetic assemblage of reflections, photos, prose, paintings, and archival fragments linked to the Finnish town of Oulu, Remembrance is a city symphony and a private musing on the place where Peter von Bagh spent most of his growing-up years. “Oulu’s bygone days as a thriving port, and its more recent life as a hub for Nokia. . . . the associations never feel forced, and are guided by no agenda other than memory and feelings. All told, it makes for an exceptionally lovely hour of cinema” undefined Scott Foundas. (2013, 69 minutes) The arc of Finland’s history from a rustic backwater to a pinnacle of progress is echoed inSplinters, the story of the Aho- Soldan family. Juhani Aho wrote the landmark novel Juha, his wife Venny Soldan-Brofeldt became Finland’s first prominent female painter, their sons Heikki Aho and Björn Soldan were pioneers of documentary filmmaking, and Heikki’s daughter Claire Aho was one of the country’s leading art photographers. “An immensely moving study of Finnishness, a grand essay on time and memory, and a paean to the arts as pillars of a nation’s self” undefined Olaf Möller. (2011, 74 minutes)
Place McEvoy Auditorium, National Portrait Gallery
Street address 8th and F St. Washington DC
Links National Gallery of Art