
Pinja Valja’s To Make a Film Just to Meet Vera (2021) was awarded with the Sphinx Award for the Best Video at International New Media Art Festival Videomedeja, held in Novi Sad, Serbia from October 7–9 2022.
The jury states: “A multilayered experimental creation which is playing with the genres of documentary, fiction and home video. Pinja Valja masterfully constructs an important personal and universal message, through an original narration stretched between childhood dreams and images of celebrity culture. The work shows the effort of shaping individual identity of the adult person, and at the same time leaves viewers in a state of ambiguity, facing both truth and fiction.”
To Make a Film Just to Meet Vera (2021) is an experimental documentary about an encounter between two women, media artist Pinja Valja and model Vera Ruuska. As a child, Pinja dreamt of becoming a princess when she grows up. The main duty of the princess was to be beautiful, wear gorgeous clothes and be admired – just like a model. Pinja begins to make a documentary about Vera in order to explore her own childhood dream.
Pinja Valja (1984) is a media artist from Helsinki, Finland. Valja works mostly with short films. Frequent themes in her work evolve around the questions of the structures of reality. For example, she questions the common and institutionalized, monogamous approach to love and relationships in her most recent films, A Poly Love Story (2017) and The Image of You (2017). Valja’s work often combine different genres of arts and film with a queer edge.
International New Media Art Festival Videomedeja, October 7–9 2022, Serbia
More information: Videomedeja
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.