Wanha Markku

In this documentary we meet five children in Sweden and see what happened in their lives. Robin was nine years old, but he already knew what a prison looked like and the bad a punishment can do. Frida was not yet born when we filmed her mother Angela in 1983. Her sister Malin lived for several years in a foster family. Bosse was 14 years old and in 9th grade when we met him in 1978. He was the only guy in the class who had glasses. Marie received many postcards and letters from her father, but very rarely met him while she was growing up.

In America, everyone has a family story of immigration. Every family, at some point, has had somebody leave their native country behind to search for a better life. How did they hold onto their identity? How did they adapt to their new life? Every family has a special story. In my case, it's my Chinese-American story. My father would always tell us his story about walking for 7 days and 6 nights, before swimming for 4 hours to Macau to escape communism in 1966. His story would fall on my deaf ears until I returned to China with him.

Tale of a Lake is a film about the thousands of lakes that Finland is known for. It takes the viewers on an unprecedented adventure, ranging from the crystal clear springs all the way to the basins of the big lakes. It opens a whole new world of underwater nature for the viewers, and tells about the many old tales and beliefs in the land of thousands of lakes. The story of the film is told through tales that are based around the myths, legends and old beliefs that are part of the Finnish mythology.

A small town ice hockey team fights through their first season in an upper division. The players' dreams might have changed from childhood but their love for the sport does not fade.

A story about the special relationship between Jaana and her daughter Liisa who died in a traffic accident at the age of 16.

Chronicle of the judicial process for the murder of 16-year-old student Paúl Guañuna, committed by police officers in 2007. The fight of a father and thousands of young people against racism, authoritarianism and impunity.

A newspaper clip of a 30-year-old movie makes our middle-aged protagonist in the middle of his peak years to look for his best childhood friend. The journey leads him back to his teenage years in the 1990s depression, over-generational substance abuse and past encounters. This partly essayistic, autobiographical documentary tells the story of friendship and generational experiences while also pondering on the causes and effects of destinies in the judgmental atmosphere of our society.

A "Chinese" father reflects on the changing relationship of China and US during his trip to Beijing to retrieve his 3-year-old "American" daughter who has been stranded because of the recent "decoupling" of the two countries. Born in China and living in the American Midwest, filmmaker Yinan Wang attempts to unpack his own experience of how a transnational migrant family deals with the distress caused by identity, nationalism, and geopolitics.