Jussi Eerola’s Blue Honda Civic (2020) was awarded with the third prize in the international competition of Short Waves Festival, held from June 14–20 in Poznań, Poland. The jury gave the award to Eerola’s short film for “taking the viewer on an original roadtrip which playfully sharpens our senses of perception of what we call reality.”
Romantic landscape paintings often portrayed weather condition, topography of national landscape, religious themes, spirituality of nature and hunting scenes. Blue Honda Civic is a minimalistic road movie mirroring the emotions of the driver through the landscapes (s)he has chosen to look at.
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.
Blue Honda Civic is also included in the experimental LABO branch of Prague Shorts, with remaining screenings on June 24 in Prague and on June 26 in Hradec Králové.
Short Waves Festival, June 14–20 2021, Poznań, Poland
Prague Shorts, June 2–27 2021, Czech Republic