When Covid hit, the theatres of Finland shut down. One particular actor, the highly lauded Martti Suosalo, suffered an acute mental crisis which was exacerbated by his approaching the age of sixty. But he acted on his fears, responding to a dream he had long harboured, to create an old-time travelling theatre, complete with nomadic players, grease paint and a big top. As director Mari Mantela underlines, her film portrays the existential crisis of a male actor, made by a female director.
At FFA, Mantela told the story in her own words. “In the aftermath of the pandemic, I heard a rumour. One of the most loved actors in Finland, Martti Suosalo was going to establish a travelling theatre of the old times. He said it was a dream from his youth, a theatre that would perform in a huge circus tent and travel to distant villages. Martti was now turning 60 and about to make his lifelong dream come true. I immediately felt that his decision meant that he was wrestling with the ‘big one.’ He was about to battle the realisation of his own mortality. I knew I would want to make a film about that battle.”
In order to finance his travelling project, actor Martii took to the stage of an altogether more august establishment, the country’s National Theatre, “working like crazy,” as Mantela puts it. But the play he chose to perform in, Waiting for Godot, couldn’t be any more resonant. It is a work “in which the wait for something greater gives the only meaning to the character,” Mantela stresses. “Suddenly this play was getting under his skin like no play before, and for me, something that had started as a documentary film became something more. The script evolved with biopic elements from Marti’s life and while he was searching for supplies for his travelling theatre, he actually started a journey backwards to his own origins. What is an actor? Who is behind all these roles?”
And in searching for answers, Martti discovered he had a grandfather from whom he inherited both his name and his profession. “After almost giving up on his dream, he finds again the essence of his profession and his meaning as an actor and as a human being,” Mantela says of her subject. “Like his grandfather, he’s a joker and a fool, and he belongs among the people. He finds the courage to make his dream come true.”
The film, which Mantela describes as “a hybrid between bio, fiction and documentary” and “an ode to performing arts and the necessity of rituals,” is at development stage, with a budget of €1,300,000. Producer Severi Koivusalo of Aurora Pictures was in Helsinki to seek out distribution potential, festival interest, co-producers and a sales agent. The pair showed the Finnish Film Affair professional audience a beautiful, rich and moving black and white teaser for the project.
“When Mari (Mantela) came to pitch this film to me with Marti, she let Martti tell about his dream of this travelling theatre while she was playing a family soundtrack in the background and pointing a flashlight to [illuminate] his face in a dark room,” Koivusalo told the FFA audience. “So it took about a minute for me to know that I wanted be involved with this. I was sold. I believe this film has huge potential to reach a wide audience nationally in Finland because Marti is a beloved and famous actor here. But what I really feel is that because of its personal-gets-universal, bigger-than-life themes, this film could be a festival darling in the top rank film festivals [across] the world,” he added.
In 2022 Mantela won the Risto Jarva Award with her short film Rabobesto or How I Saved a Monster. The film also won the Spirit Award at Brooklyn Film Festival and the main prize at Helsinki International Film Festival. Mantela ́s debut short film An Autobiography won six international prizes. Together with producer Koivusalo, she is hoping to deliver Marotte by Winter 2025/26.
