Milja Viita‘s experimental documentary SKÖNÄRIT has been selected to Festival ECRÃ of Experimental Art and Cinema, held from July 3–27, 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

SKÖNÄRIT is a collage film about seafarers based on archival footage shot around the globe by sailors themselves. ‘Skönäri’ is old Finnish sailor slang, meaning a seafarer. The script is based on the logbooks, letters and telegrams the filmmaker obtained alongside the footage from a small Finnish port town called Rauma. Through the tragic true-life story of a young sailor, Jalmar Yrjänen, the film portrays the life of those working at sea at the mercy of the natural elements, while also touching upon themes of colonialism and globalization.

Milja Viita (b. 1974) is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Porvoo, Finland. She graduated from the Time and Space department in Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. Viita’s artworks have be exhibited in various art museums and galleries, and her films have been screened at several international film festivals e.g. Ann Arbor Film Festival, Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage, Midnight Sun Film Festival, Festival du Nouvéau Cinéma, Vienna Shorts, DocPoint and HotDocs Festival.