The Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arctic circle — where the sun never sets. Founded by Aki and Mika Kaurismäki along with Anssi Mänttäri and Peter von Bagh in 1985, the festival has played host to an international who’s who of directors and each day begins with a two-hour discussion. To mark the festival’s silver anniversary, festival director Peter von Bagh edited together highlights from these dialogues to create an epic four-part choral history of cinema drawn from the anecdotes, insights, and wisdom of his all-star cast: Coppola, Fuller, Forman, Chabrol, Corman, Demy, Kieslowski, Kiarostami, Varda, Oliveira, Erice, Rouch, Gilliam, Jancso — and 64 more. Ranging across innumerable topics (war, censorship, movie stars, formative influences, America, neorealism) these voices, many now passed away, engage in a personal dialogue across the years that’s by turns charming, profound, hilarious and moving.
Peter von Bagh
Robert Parrish
Roy Ward Baker
Víctor Erice
Francis Ford Coppola
Samuel Fuller
Sergio Sollima
Miloš Forman
John Boorman
Roger Corman
Jean Rouch
Manoel de Oliveira
Claude Chabrol
Jacques Demy
Krzysztof Kieślowski
Abbas Kiarostami
Terry Gilliam
Miklós Jancsó
Jean-Pierre Léaud
João Bénard da Costa
G. Carbera Infante
José Luis Guarner
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jean Douchet
Raymond Durgnat
Pertti Lumirae
Satu Laaksonen
Jonathan Demme
Paolo Taviani
Agnieszka Holland
Andrei German
André de Toth
Krzysztof Zanussi
Monte Hellman
Dušan Makavejev
Gian Vittorio Baldi
Carroll Ballard
Jim Jarmusch
Andrey Smirnov
Denys Arcand
Vincent Sherman
Luc Dardenne
Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Vittorio De Seta
Francesco Rosi
Bob Rafelson
Dino Risi
Chantal Akerman