Milja Viita’s Bambi (2022, in featured image) and Jussi Eerola’s Grasshopper (2023) will be screened at Ann Arbor Film Festival, held from March 21–26 2023 in Michigan, U.S. The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival in North America, founded by George Manupelli in 1963. 

Jussi Eerola’s Grasshopper will be screened on Tuesday, March 21, at 20:15 in “Films in Competition 1”. Grasshopper is a minimalistic musical where the night falls down on empty business premises – and lights go up!

Finnish filmmaker and cinematographer Jussi Eerola (1969) has worked as director of photography on many international award-winning films from prominent Finnish directors and artists. His directorial debut was in 2009 with Refugees of Technocracy, a documentary about electro-hypersensitive people. Return of the Atom (2015) received the Best Nordic Film prize at CPH:DOX and it was co-directed with Mika Taanila, one of the people with whom Eerola founded Elokuvayhtiö Testifilmi, a Finnish film production company. Blue Honda Civic is his directorial short film debut.

Milja Viita’s Bambi will be screened on Friday, March 24, at 17:30 in “Films in Competition 6: Celluloid“. Bambi is an in-depth study of materiality and a cinematic intrusion into the body of a classic animation, where the film layers and silver halides lure the viewer to the multidimensional journey into the celluloid.

Milja Viita‘s (b.1974) installations and films consist of experimental and documentary elements. Her works have been exhibited in e.g. Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Kunsthalle Helsinki, Mänttä Art Festival and in film and media art festivals internationally. Milja Viita lives and works in Porvoo, Finland. She graduated with MFA degree in Time and Space Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2005.

Ann Arbor Film Festival, March 21–26 2003, Michigan, U.S.

More information: Ann Arbor FF

AV-arkki has promoted and distributed Finnish media art since 1989. AV-arkki’s promotional efforts have made the artists’ participation in this event possible.