09/02/2012

The Finns have never been famous for their haute cuisine (ever tried the reindeer stew at the Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä?) still Finnish director Katja Gauriloff’s documentary Canned Dreams (pictured) will have its international premiere in the Berlinale’s sixth edition of the Culinary Cinema programme (February 12-17).

And nor is Gauriloff’s second film a look behind-the-casseroles at Helsinki’s prestigious Chez Dominique restaurant - she has toured the world to depict the plight of all the workers who contribute to producing a can of ravioli: "The uncountable pairs of hands and their stories behind the making of this product.

“I did not want to concentrate on the chain of production alone, but the people behind it. I wanted to know whose hands picked the tomatoes, what goes on in the head of a pig butcher, and what are the hopes and dreams of someone toiling away in a tin mine. All these people found their way into my film," Gauriloff explained.

Canned Dreams was scripted with Jarkko T Laine and Joonas Berghäll, the Finnish director-producer whose Steam of Life [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2010), following naked Finns in the sauna talking about their lives, was nominated both for the Nordic Council’s and the European Film Award. Berghäll also produced for Oktober Oy.

Gauriloff is herself a part-owner of the Helsinki-based production company. Born in Lapland, she studied film directing at Tampere – her debut was A Shout into the Wind (2008). “Canned Dreams just might be the best Finnish documentary of all time,” wrote a critic after the local launch last month (January 27).

At the Berlin International Film Festival, the Finnish entry will screen with another 14 culinary titles at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, followed by a meal inspired by the films and prepared by star chefs at the Gropius Mirror restaurant. At the European Film Market , Canned Dreams is touted by Germany’s Deckert Distribution.