Opera singer Nora travels to a Finnish island to bury her husband, but the local pastor, Natalia,
greets her reluctantly. Amid the island’s magical landscape, a bond of guilt and grief grows
between the two women. In the latest work by renowned Finnish documentarian Honkasalo – her
first film after a ten-year creative hiatus – the story of loss is intertwined with the North
American Indigenous myth of “orenda,” the invisible force that dwells within all living things.
Pirjo Honkasalo
Pirjo Honkasalo was born in 1947 in Helsinki. She entered film school at the age of just
seventeen. Her first major directorial work, the historical drama Flame Top (1980), competed in
the Cannes Film Festival’s official selection. As a documentarian, she is best known for her
Trilogy of the Sacred and the Satanic. Scanorama has previously showcased three of her films:
The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (2004), Ito – Diary of an Urban Priest (2009), and Concrete Night
(2013).
Opera singer Nora travels to a Finnish island to bury her husband, but the local pastor, Natalia,
greets her reluctantly. Amid the island’s magical landscape, a bond of guilt and grief grows
between the two women. In the latest work by renowned Finnish documentarian Honkasalo – her
first film after a ten-year creative hiatus – the story of loss is intertwined with the North
American Indigenous myth of “orenda,” the invisible force that dwells within all living things.
Pirjo Honkasalo
Pirjo Honkasalo was born in 1947 in Helsinki. She entered film school at the age of just
seventeen. Her first major directorial work, the historical drama Flame Top (1980), competed in
the Cannes Film Festival’s official selection. As a documentarian, she is best known for her
Trilogy of the Sacred and the Satanic. Scanorama has previously showcased three of her films:
The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (2004), Ito – Diary of an Urban Priest (2009), and Concrete Night
(2013).
greets her reluctantly. Amid the island’s magical landscape, a bond of guilt and grief grows
between the two women. In the latest work by renowned Finnish documentarian Honkasalo – her
first film after a ten-year creative hiatus – the story of loss is intertwined with the North
American Indigenous myth of “orenda,” the invisible force that dwells within all living things.
Pirjo Honkasalo
Pirjo Honkasalo was born in 1947 in Helsinki. She entered film school at the age of just
seventeen. Her first major directorial work, the historical drama Flame Top (1980), competed in
the Cannes Film Festival’s official selection. As a documentarian, she is best known for her
Trilogy of the Sacred and the Satanic. Scanorama has previously showcased three of her films:
The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (2004), Ito – Diary of an Urban Priest (2009), and Concrete Night
(2013).