31/03/2026 - The Finnish creator breaks down how she came up with a story set in a small bar in Helsinki’s Itä-Pasila neighbourhood

(© Siiri Halko)

Presented at Series Mania in the Short Forms Competition, Atlantis Pasila is all about a small bar in Helsinki’s Itä-Pasila neighbourhood. Kauri (Jasir Osman), who works there, is plotting his escape – all the way to sunny Portugal. That is, until his old van breaks down and he’s stuck with the regulars once again. The show’s creator, Anna Brotkin, tells us more.

Cineuropa: It’s great the way you show Finland in the show: you start in a bar, which, well, everyone would expect, but there’s something very fresh about these characters.
Anna Brotkin: For me, as a writer, characters are the essence and the heart of a TV series. Viewers don’t fall in love with plot points, story arcs or cliffhangers; they fall in love with the characters. I always aim to create authentic characters that the audience would somehow recognise from the real world, but ensure that they also feel new and surprising. I believe creating characters for comedy requires playing with clichés but always adding something extra. While creating a concept for a TV show, I spend a lot of time with the characters. I try to understand them, get to know them and hang out with them, so that when the actual writing starts, they already exist in my head. All I have to do then is release them.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

It’s one of those stories where nothing really happens – and everything happens. Did you want to play with something like that? Today, most shows are so plot-centric.
I consider myself a very character-driven and dialogue-driven writer. Plot, for me, is often secondary. Of course, I want my characters to develop, and they need to have driving forces, plus a TV show needs a story and a premise in order to work, but the plot in itself is not that interesting to me. I don’t think people who like my shows are there for the plot, to be honest. The mundane, seemingly trivial and random details in modern life fascinate me, and I try my best when writing about that. Maybe it also reflects the way I see life in general: it’s a non-linear bunch of sometimes related, but often unrelated, events and random details constructing an existence until we die.

There’s a great tradition of stories set in bars, like Cheers. Did you think about any of them? Or is it just a useful setting because people come and go?
It’s handy as a main location because it’s a public space that anyone can enter. For a writer, it makes things easier – you don’t have to use that much screen time explaining why on Earth this or that person is there in the first place. At the same time, a bar can feel like a very private place. While writing the show, I was a regular at my neighbourhood bar, Petiit, in Vallila, Helsinki, and it often felt like home. I knew the people in it, and I spent so much time there. The show is about folks who think they don’t need anyone, so without that bar, it would be pretty difficult to get them to communicate with anyone. If Riku didn’t own a bar, he would just be sitting alone at home. And also, my previous show Aikuiset was set in a café, so that felt like a nice continuation.

Why are the episodes so short? Do you enjoy this format?
It was something that our broadcaster, YLE, suggested. To be honest, at first, I wasn’t thrilled about it. I had been writing 22-minute episodes for a long time and was in love with them. But once I started writing Atlantis Pasila, I kind of fell in love with this 15-minute episode length. It felt like a nice challenge. You can do a lot in 15 minutes, but then again, you really need to choose carefully what’s in it.

You talk about queer love and attraction with so much tenderness and wit – people flirt over pickles! What did you want to explore here?
I love to write love stories! It’s as simple as that. Maybe it’s my way of trying to offer hope and love to people in this cold, dark and lonely age we live in. When I started writing Aikuiset, I wanted it to be about everything but romantic love. I wanted to write about friendship and family. But then, I fell in love. The second season became hugely romantic. Through that, I realised I actually love writing about love. The queer love in Atlantis Pasila is a bit darker than the queer love in Aikuiset. I wanted to explore new shades but also make people feel some butterflies in their stomach.