Special Screenings
STEAM OF LIFE
DIRECTOR: MIKA HOTAKAINEN, JOONAS BERGHÄLL
FINLAND, 2010
Men in general, and especially Finnish men, are notorious for keeping their feelings bottled up. But in the almost dreamlike environment of a steam-filled sauna, Finnish men’s deepest feelings about life, love, and family are easily liberated. STEAM OF LIFE allows the viewer to become a fly on the wall, listening in on (naked) men talking to each other and sharing like girls in the sanctuary of the country’s ubiquitous saunas. From the rusted interior of an old converted camper to beautifully appointed wooden steam rooms and even a roadside phone booth fashioned into an impromptu hotbox, the stories ring with profoundly universal truth. “The Finnish sauna documentary had a reputation for being a tear-jerker. I didn’t believe it until I went to see it myself and all the men in the cinema were in tears.”—BBC. (81 mins.)
This year’s Finnish submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.