Amber Online

Exhibition

Title: Letters To Katja (1994)

Producer: Amber Films

Exhibits: 2 (view by pages)

In a deeply personal and evocatively universal documentary, Amber photographer & filmmaker Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen returns to her roots in Finland after 23 years in Britain. See a video clip

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Letters To Katja (1994)

Amber Films (Producer)

Perhaps the freedom I wanted most, was the freedom not to know which journeys I might embark on in my life, and where they might take me. And like so many others, perhaps I had to leave in order to find just what I had left behind. Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen

A chronicle of Finnish-born photographer Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's return to her roots in Finland with her daughter Katja, after 23 years in Britain. An intimate journey of the heart, revealing the emotional turning points of their year in Finland, and their attempt to come to terms with the complex feelings around personal and national identity.

While in Finland Sirkka raised funds from the Finnish State Television Yleisradio, and the Finnish Film Foundation, to make a documentary film about her year there. She took her daughter with her, hoping to share her experience with her, but eventually homesickness and the harsh Finnish winter drove Katja back to dad in England. Sirkka stayed on, and together with Peter Roberts, created the film from photographs on her return, as well as the family video and cine film shot during the year.

The film has been screened on Finnish and German TV, and at international film festivals at Tempare in Finland, Rivertown in Minnesota, Melbourne, London, Christchurch and Auckland in New Zealand, Gothenborg, Amsterdam, Cork in Ireland, Lubeck, Grimstad in Norway; Amascultura in Portugal, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in Canada, and at the Margaret Mead International Film Festival in New York City.

AMBER FILMS
Made under the auspices of the ACTT Workshop Declaration with financial assistance from Northern Arts and Channel Four Television.
Co-produced with Studio Neitoperho, Finland

REVIEWS
Whilst many personal documentaries in recent years have tended to be self-indulgent, this film avoids too much personal storytelling and instead explores philosophical ideas about national identity in a most accessible way. Beautifully crafted with stunning images of the seasons in Finland, the film has a multi-layered feminine texture involving diary, documentary and home movie footage. SI, Melbourne International Film Festival

'Letters to Katja' has a moving, personal approach. It also possesses a magnificent, deeply expressive use of visual language, the significance of which, especially in the field of documentaries, is in a class of its own. Konttinen's background as a photographer has manifestly enriched the work. Even the occasional graininess and slow motion used for extra effect weave into an integral part of the narrative without a trace of artificiality. What are in question are the boundaries and fortuity of human memory, and the expression of it through visual means. Kouvolan Sanomat, Finland