Deep in Finland’s northern forest, Finnish filmmaker Juha Suonpää pitched his camera and left it there…for seven years.
“What emerged is 200,000 clips of unexpected intimacy,” Suonpää tells BDE of his new project Creaturama – Epic of the Animals, selected for Finnish Film Affair. “Lynxes gazing back at the lens, bears dying under the snow, wolves and deer moving through landscapes touched by humans.”
“In an era of climate crisis, this perspective feels urgent. Instead of explaining nature from above, Creaturama questions the human gaze and invites audiences to enter the forest as equals. It resonates deeply in Finland, where forests shape identity, but it also speaks internationally to shifting ideas of coexistence and post-humanist thought.”
In the film, there is neither plot nor narration. The story unfolds through the animals’ presence, movement, and their gaze. “A new cinematic language – silent, intuitive, and universal – emerges,” Suonpää confides.
“Visually, the film combines the raw authenticity of trail camera footage with the grandeur of cinematic structure,” he elaborates. “It is closer to Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi than to a traditional wildlife film. The rhythm comes from the seasons: snow melting, rivers flooding, light returning, darkness descending.”
“Cinematically, the look is mythic and poetic. The fixed cameras create a direct, almost confrontational gaze between animal and viewer,” he continues. “The score – inspired by Erki Paroja’s ‘Anima mea’ – blends with forest sounds to create a sensory immersion. There is no human explanation. The result is an audiovisual experience that allows audiences to feel present in the forest, vulnerable to its silences and surprises.”
The primary launch target for the film will be the international festival circuit. “From there, we aim to collaborate with European broadcasters such as YLE, hopefully such as ARTE/ZDF, while also pursuing cinema-on-demand and event-based screenings in Finland and abroad.”
“On the production side, [production company] Swamphead brings experience in both artistic documentary and international co-productions,” Suonpää underlines his company’s credentials. “The business plan is grounded in realism: multi-source financing (public funds, broadcasters, sales), a staged editing process beginning in early 2026, and clear festival and release pathways. We are positioning the film both as a high-art cinema documentary and as a broadcaster-friendly cultural event, ensuring both visibility and commercial reach.”
At Finnish Film Affair, Suonpää will look to connect with sales agents, potential co-producers and broadcasters. “It will also be valuable to gauge how the project resonates with international professionals – and to test whether our belief in the film’s uniqueness is reflected in the market’s response,” he says.
He is also planning an impact campaign, though not in the traditional activist sense, he says. “Rather than delivering a conservation message, Creaturama aims to reframe how humans perceive forests and animals: not as resources or spectacles, but as presences and equals. We plan to partner with cultural institutions, museums and universities to use the film as a springboard for dialogue on multispecies coexistence.”
Suonpää further identifies a personal quality in his merging of artistic vision with long-term fieldwork. “I am a photographer, filmmaker and researcher with a PhD in environmental aesthetics, and my work has always explored the boundary between humans and nature. With Lynx Man [pitched at FFA 2022, and Special Mention recipient at CPH:DOX 2023] I demonstrated how to transform an unconventional human–animal relationship into a cinematic story that travelled globally. With Creaturama, I am going further — offering animals agency in the filmmaking process itself.”
