This year Midnight Sun Film Festival was attended by a distinguished slate of guests and masters of cinema; including Czech-born, double Oscar winning director MILOS FORMAN, celebrated Russian director ANDREI KONCHALOVSKY, American cult actor SEYMOUR CASSEL, who belonged to director John Cassavetes’ centre actors and actor LASSE PÖYSTI, one of the brightest stars of Finnish cinema.

The guests of the younger generation were the Estonian director VEIKO ÕUNPUU and actor RAIN TOLK, also from Estonia, French director SERGE BOZON, who conquered the audience with the unique war film La France and Norwegian director NILS GAUP, who’s latest film Kautokeino Rebellion told the story of one of the most dramatic episodes of Sami history.

Accomploished Finnish filmmakers and actors were also in attendance, such as Directors JOUKO AALTONEN, ARTO HALONEN, DOME KARUKOSKI, MARI RANTASILA and MIIKA SOINI and actors ANNI-KRISTIINA JUUSO, RIA KATAJA and KARI VÄÄNÄNEN presented their films to full auditoriums. The selection of past year’s Finnish films reach its climax in the premiere of Miika Soini’s touching debut film Thomas, starring Lasse Pöysti.

As in years past, the master class screenings continued to be a success amongst the festival audience. In the presentations following the master class screening the French professors JEAN-LOUIS LEUTRAT and SUZANNE LIANDRAT-GUIGUES, famous for their essays of cinema aesthetics, gave an unforgettable insight to the film classics such Howard Hawks’ western Rio Bravo, Alan Resnais’ poetic comedy Private Fears in Public Places and to the work of director Jean-Luc Godard.

Attendees enthusiastically greeted festival director Peter von Bagh at the Morning discussions. With the inspiring introduction from Peter von Bagh this year’s guests Lasse Pöysti, Seymour Cassel, Milos Forman and Andrei Konchalovsky shared their thoughts on life and films offering a unique chance to get inside the minds of these four masters.

During its 23-year-old history Midnight Sun Film Festival has produced nearly sixty silent film screenings accompanied with live music. This being unarguable notable cultural contribution also in the international scale. This year Midnight Sun Film Festival had two silent film screenings, which received standing applause from the festival audience. With the intriguing sound world Finnish group Cleaning Women accompanied the Russian cult classic Aelita directed by Yakov Prozanov. Otto Donner and his orchestra combined jazz and urban sounds in a masterly manner in the interpretation of King Vidor’s classic The Crowd, which moved the audience to tears.

Since the year 1986 Midnight Sun Film Festival has given a special acknowledgement to individuals, who have made an important contribution to Finnish film culture. This year the 21st Sodankylä-award was given to Raimo Silius, a central figure in the field of Finnish festival scene.