After EverythingThe film shows a dystopian world where brutality and inhumanity are commonplace and part of everyday routine. The atmosphere of doom is emphasized by the combination of black and white footage, harsh settings and industrial noise music. The powerful story leads to a situation in which brutality is victorious, yet beyond total destruction there is also room for a new beginning.
Love Is a Treasure is a 55-minute film about the world of women who have developed psychoses. It consists of five episodes each telling the story of one woman. The episodes are based research and interviews but the stories and dialogue are fiction, combinations of different elements. —The Cinematic Works of Eija-Liisa Ahtila
Where is Where? is an experimental film that quarters the screen in order to have four different scenes play simultaneously. It's a meditation on the Algerian war that culminates in a brutal killing.
This charming and casually reverent work is an authorized single-screen version of an installation by celebrated video artist Ahtila. Amid stunning snow-draped forests, a women’s theatrical group rehearses a stage version of the Annunciation (the director is played by Aki Kaurismäki’s signature actress Kati Outinen), in the process discovering the parallel worlds of humans and animals, and the proximity of the ordinary to the miraculous.
