Productions >A Happy Home

A Happy Home

TV-serie (3 x 52 min.)

Synopsis

This is a story about a lower middle class family living in a small village in the North of Finland. This is the daughters', Ruut's and Birge's, survival story as the family falls apart due to father's mental disorder and mother's alcoholism. After father's death mother's alcoholism breaks away. The daughters have to deal with the feel of shame front of the eyes of the hostile people of the village and with the unpredictable nature of the alcoholic mother at home. Birge is the rebellious one and Ruut, the little sister, is the diplomatic one. She is the one who looks after the mother and home. With help of the sisterly solidarity and her own imaginary world, Ruut is able to cope with her life. Ruut is brought closest to the viewer, and she is also the sympathetic narrator/thinker of the film with a tone of witty sense of black humour.

In part one the sisters innocence mind of a child is broken eventually by what they go through and what they see. At the end they are taken to custody. In part two the sisters are teenagers. They are still coping with their alcoholic mother but also with their identity and especially with their sexual identity. Birge is expressive and sexual opposite to Ruut, who is more withdrawn and complex with her sexuality. The mother is rushing towards her own destruction meanwhile the sisters are struggling towards their own independence. At the end mother dies and the sisters are finally free to start to live their own life.

The film is tragic but at the same time bitingly comical, even absurd with a tone of magical realism.

Director: Maria Ruotsala
Featuring: Milka Ahlroth, Carl-Kristian Rundman, Martti Suosalo, Taisto Reimaluoto, Jessica Grabowsky, Anni Ojanen
Script: Maria Ruotsala
Camera: Tuomo Hutri
Set design: Kaisa Mäkinen
Production: Kinoproduction Oy / Risto Salomaa
Shootings: July-August 2005 and February 2006
Premiere: October 2006

East Finland Film Commission co-produced and coordinated local arrangements and shooting in East Finland area.

More information:
Producer
Risto Salomaa
Tel. +358 9 6850 4615
Fax. +358 9 6850 4610
Email risto.salomaa@kinoproduction.fi