Teit meistä kauniin

Time sure does fly, when the rock band Apulanta's career has reached an impressive 25-year-milestone. The longest-serving bass player of the group, Tuukka Temonen, first embarked on his current career by directing his group's music videos, and now, in his first feature drama, returns to the milieu of his youth and the early years of Apulanta. In 1991, the economic recession led to mass unemployment and the devaluation of the Finnish Mark, which also hit hard in the saw- and steelmill-driven town of Heinola. The Finnish rap music playing in the teen discos was a bit different from today and the only TV talent show was for children, when Toni, Antti and Sipe came together to realize their rock n' roll fantasies. Girls act as both a dividing and unifying force: Toni's sour-faced fiancée, Elli, doesn't encourage his "useless hobby", but Mandy, a bubbly exchange student and the band's first bass player, connects the trio with a grumpy kid from a bourgeois family, Tuukka. Spoilers may be unnecessary or, for Finnish audiences, even impossible. As is to expected from what is essentially a teenage drama, the fresh performances from the young main cast act as the film's dynamo. (LH) (Midnight Sun Film Festival)