When the Mill Hill Trees Spoke to Me
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Duration: 17 minutes
Short Synopsis
The filmmaker returns to her childhood village. As she looks at her own past and the place’s history, an investigation into the relationship between human and nature takes form.
Biography of the director
Kirsikka Paakkinen (b. 1985) is a Finnish director and screenwriter based in Rovaniemi. She is currently finishing her Film MA studies at Valand Academy, Gothenburg. Her previous work includes short film Ritual (script) and experimental shorts Water Spirits and Hiisi.
Kirsikka Paakkinen
kirsikka.paakkinen@gmail.com
+358 404127173
Artist Statement
Interested in exploring her personal perspective on the relationship humans have with nature, in her graduation film ‘When the Mill Hill Trees Spoke to Me” Paakkinen takes the spectator to her childhood environment. Paakkinen attempts to visualize nature as a presence rather than a subject for human analysis and evaluation. By emphasizing the experience of nature, she creates an open film that offers space for interpretation, reflection and contemplation – a formation of one’s own temporary connection with nature.
The presence of history in sacrificial stones from pre-Christian times, as well as slowly degenerating modern village centers, and age-old yet modernized human interactions with nature portray the layers of time within the place, and the human-nature relationship it holds. Alongside the linearity of time in cultural history runs the cyclical time of nature. In her inquiry into the relationship humans can have with nature, Paakkinen is looking at ways to visualize both the historical perspective and a timeless space formed through an experiential perspective, where experience and presence come to the foreground.
