J-P Valkeapää will come straight from Cannes to Sodankylä this week where his film is screening in the New Finnish Films strand. 

The dark comedy Dogs Don’t Wear Pants selected at the Directors Fortnight in Cannes, is among 24 new Finnish shorts and feature length films set to screen at the 34th Midnight Sun Film Festival (June 12-16). 

Besides J-P Valkeapää, other Finnish guests in attendance include actor Hannu-Pekka Björkman (2019 Jussi award for his role in The Human Part), actress Eeva Litman, directors Miia Tervo (Aurora), Dome Karukoski (Tolkien), Mikko Mattila (Mystinen metsätyömies), Reetta Huhtanen (Gods of Molenbeek) and Arttu Haglund (Gone). The world established documentarist and cinematographer Pirjo Honkasalo (The 3 Rooms of Melancholia) will have a carte blanche. 

Finnish visual artist Mika Taanila will give a masterclass, as well as Sonora Broka, artistic director of the Riga International Film festival, and Kent Jones, writer/director and artistic director of the New York Film Festival. 

The festival opens on Wednesday with The Constant Gardener by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, expected at the village of Sodankylä above the Arctic Circle. Other top international names announced include Swedish actor/director Pernilla August, Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and actors Marziyeh Meshkini and Shahab Hosseini, French director Arnaud Desplechin, upcoming German director Nora Fingscheidt, experimental directors Johann Lurf (Austria) and Mark Jenkin (UK).

The Midnight Sun Film Festival was founded in 1986 by Finnish filmmakers Aki Kaurismäki and Mika Kaurismäki and the Municipality of Sodankylä in the heart of Finnish Lapland. Timo Malmi is artistic director.