Produced by Isabella Karhu of Danish Bear Productions, The Last Misfits by the Golden River by Juho-Pekka Tanskanen is described as a film about “land, generation gaps and things coming to an end,” and tells the very human stories within a 150-year-old gold mining community in the distant Lapland wilderness.
Focussing on the youngest and oldest members of the community, the film will portray how “the miners’ peaceful life comes to an end when a new law forces them to abandon their way of living.” Some try to fight, but as the story proceeds, it becomes obvious that our main characters will experience a personal end of the world, which moves them into the stream of history…”
“The things that make this film unique are its characters and the wilderness in the Finnish Lapland it takes place in,” explains producer Karhu. “The crew has filmed material that can never be captured again, since many of the protagonists have already left the gold lands forever. The gold mining in Lapland is almost a folk-tale in Finland and this crew had the last chance to capture this way of life in its original form. No other feature length documentary film has been made about this community.”
“The film will be depicted through painting-like visual expression and will be based on a strong story,” Karhu continues. “This warm, bittersweet and universal film’s main theme is the only permanent thing there is: change. Total, unexpected change on the basis of your life, the changing of the times, and the change of generations. These are some things that we can all relate to in our lives.”
She adds how “what makes this viewing experience unique, is the film’s style and the Finnish quirkiness and warm-hearted self-irony the film and its characters have.”
In Helsinki, Karhu is looking for sales, co-producers, distribution, festivals and further finance on the €225,000 feature doc (60% in place), which is currently in production and which she hopes to deliver in Winter 2024/25. “Our next hurdle will be in securing the rest of the financing for the post-production phase. Concerning that jump, we believe we’re already in mid-air, and if everything goes as planned, we will be landing in the upcoming months. After that the next step will be securing a world premiere for an A-list festival, and that is something we hope we can partly achieve through the Finnish Film Affair.”
Director Tanskanen (Waiting for Barcelona, 2018) points out how he his goal is “to depict perpetual change – the main theme of the film – in a funny, touching and cinematically ambitious way.”
Of her director, producer Karhu is full of praise. “Juho-Pekka has an intuitive way of beautifully capturing the essence of his subjects, be they people or places, animals or ideas. In all the aspects of his filmmaking, there also exists his strong personal touch which is most eminent in the visual styles of his films. And on top of this all, he’s also a very nice person and fun to work with!”
