Elian Mikkola’s Man Made (2022, in featured image) and Mika Taanila’s Failed Emptiness. Place (2023) will be screened at Quebec City Film Festival, held from September 13–17 2023 in Quebec, Canada in the screenings Bobines en folie and Terra incognita respectively. The screenings will take place on Thursday, September 14 2023.
Man Made, a repurposed narrative of a boy who gets introduced to the wonders of life by a beautiful shining trumpet. But the struggle to be oneself has only begun. Utilizing found 16mm footage and both digital and analog manipulation techniques, the filmmaker pierces conventional masculinity with a transformative queer gaze.
Elian Mikkola is a Finnish Moving Image Artist (of Karelian descent), and a white settler currently based between Treaty 4, Regina, and Montréal (Tiohtià:ke), Canada. Originally from Turku, Finland, Mikkola holds a BA in Journalism from Tampere University. They completed their MFA in Media Production in 2019 at the University of Regina. Mikkola works closely with both analog and digital images and their hybrid extensions. Their work explores themes such as memory, spatial dependences and queer belonging.

In Failed Emptiness. Place, the days are long. Their core is hot. Thermographic camera looks at a new residential area in eastern Helsinki.
Mika Taanila (s. 1965) is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. He works with documentaries, experimental film and visual arts. Human engineering, utopias, failures and man-machines are recurring themes in his films and installations.
Quebec City Film Festival, September 13–17 2023, Canada
More information: Quebec City Film Festival
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. If you want to hear the latest news from our distribution, subscribe to our newsletter!