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Aho & Soldan Lifetime Achievement Award

Aho & Soldan Lifetime Achievement Award is named after Heikki Aho and Björn Soldan, pioneers of Finnish documentary film. They can be said to have started the Finnish documentary tradition. During their career, Aho & Soldan produced 400 documentary films, of which as many as 300 were produced in the 1930's. Aho & Soldan contributed significantly to Finnish film, as they captured stories great and small in the film form. The team made films on everyday subjects as well as on great Finnish men, such as composer Jean Sibelius.

Criteria for receiving the Aho & Soldan Award include a remarkable life's work, contribution to the Finnish creative documentary film and a successful long-lasting career as a documentary film director. The festival program includes a restrospective of the awarded director. It is a unique opportunity to see the director's life work as a whole.

Awardees:

 

Aho & Soldan Award 2011: Pekka Lehto

DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival presented director Pekka Lehto with the Aho & Soldan Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. An extensive retrospective of the director’s work was screened at the festival in January.

Pekka Lehto has during his impressive career been involved in over 30 films. His film career began in 1960’s as an assisting sound engineer, assistant editor and actor. His first feature length film Ikäluokka (1976) was co-directed by Pirjo Honkasalo. Since then, Lehto’s movies have been nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Pekka Lehto is one of the most individual filmmakers in Finnish documentary film. He has succeeded in combining fact and fiction narratives in his movies in an open-minded way, and many of his leading characters have been controversial public figures. For example, Yksinteoin (1990) is a touching monolog of director Jussi Parviainen’s divorce and past. Temppeli (1991) on the other hand is a profile on the mythical character Ior Bock. Screened at DocPoint 2010, Epäilyksen varjossa (2009) depicts the Stasi-investigation regarding Alpo Rusi. In addition, both Finnish rock star Andy McCoy (The Real McCoy, 1998) and dance legend Aira Samulin (Tango Kabaree, 2001) have made their way onto the big screen in Lehto’s hands.

 

Aho & Soldan Award 2010: Kiti Luostarinen 

In 2010, DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival was proud to present documentarist Kiti Luostarinen with the Aho & Soldan Lifetime Achievement Award for her long, successful career. The festival honoured the awardee by screening a selected retrospective of her work.

Kiti Luostarinen studied social psychology and pedagogics, but through her hobbies in painting and poetry, was driven towards making movies in the early 1990s. Throughout her career, Luostarinen has, in her own very personal style, dealt with themes relating to the most universal, as well as the most intimate moments in human life; her works are united by her curiosity and her immense respect for life.

Luostarinen’s documentaries offer the viewers a unique opportunity to look at the significant moments of their own life and to identify emotions of their own. Vutti Vuugle (1991), is a daring plunge into the world according to a child, a theme that Sanokaa mitä näitte (1993), her first feature-length documentary, continues to explore. Strong feminist views are exposed in Naisenkaari (1997), exploring femininity and a woman’s relationship to her own body, while Kuoleman kasvot (2003) portrays death as a beautiful, austere moment. Her latest film, Palnan tyttäret (2007) delves into the identity building process of an adopted child.

 

Aho & Soldan Award 2005: Peter von Bagh 

Peter von Bagh is one of most noted film critics and writers in Finland. Although his works have been shown for decades, especially on television to millions of viewers, his extensive career as a documentarian and a film director has remained out of view. Von Bagh's genre is the compilation film, collage based on archive material. Exploring the imagery of a world gone by, von Bagh charts the collective memory of the nation.

"The finest possibilities of filmmaking are contained in documentary", von Bagh has stated. Old, sometimes forgotten and seemingly worthless images that are transformed into something new due to the magic of editing: recent interviews and old newsreels, photographs, popular songs and glimpses from fiction films. In matter of style the author draws from his own memory, in his own words - a child's memory.

 

Aho & Soldan Award 2004: Pirjo Honkasalo

 

Ms. Pirjo Honkasalo became in the 1990's one of the most recognized film directors in Finland. She is a master of both documentary and fiction films. In her films, Honkasalo combines the artistic means of filmmaking with the observation of her characters' inner lives - real or fictitious ones. This method results in visually beautiful, thought-provoking movies.

In the documentary films forming the Trilogy of the Sacred and the Evil, Mysterion (1991), Tanjuska and the Seven Devils (1993) and Atman (1996), Honkasalo explored religions and the spiritual depths of humans. These three films brought Honkasalo various awards at international film festivals, including the VPRO Joris Ivens Award of the IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) in 1996. The latest fiction film by Honkasalo, Fire-Eater (1998), was awarded at the Los Angeles International Film Festival in 1998.

During her lengthy career, Pirjo Honkasalo, all-rounder of the film, has done everything from directing to shooting as well as from scriptwriting to editing. At the early stages of her career, Honkasalo worked as an assistant director for Finnish director Rauni Mollberg in his film The Earth Is a Sinful Song (1973). A few years later, productive co-operation with director Pekka Lehto started. The first co-direction was Their Age (1976) followed by The Sign of Danger (1978), Flame Top (1980), 250 Grams (1983) and Da Capo (1985).

 

Aho & Soldan Award 2003: Lasse Naukkarinen

 

Lasse Naukkarinen's long career as a film-maker and a documentarist extends from the 1960's to the present day. At the time of receiving the award Naukkarinen had directed 27 documentaries and 4 fiction films, shot 50 films and produced, manuscripted and edited dozens of movies. He has also worked as a photographer, written about documentary films and taught in different film, video and communication schools in Finland.

Naukkarinen has always been able to renew himself. His career as a documentarist started with political films, through which he immediately became a part of the leading group of political film makers. Later on Naukkarinen moved on to work on a more essayistic and personal way, finding his topics in history. In the 1990's Naukkarinen changed again as he moved on to lighter video equipment. Naukkarinen's works from the 90's are distinctive, powerful and funny. The main theme has been depicting creative artists: on one hand the Finnish sculptor Miina Äkkijyrkkä, and on the other hand Naukkarinen's own son, the artistic spirit Esa. His latest documentary film Schoolboys Life (2002) had its premiere at DocPoint festival.

 

Aho & Soldan Award 2002: Markku Lehmuskallio

 

In 2002 the the first Aho & Soldan Lifetime Achievement Award was given to one of our internationally bestknown directors, Markku Lehmuskallio.

Lehmuskallio has worked with fiction as well as documentary films. He delves into his topics very intensively, which can be felt as a powerful energy and presence in his films. Many of his films describe traditional life among indigenous peoples in the arctic world. Since the beginning of the 1990's Lehmuskallio has worked together with Anastasia Lapsui. Lehmuskallio's and Lapsui's films have been widely recognized internationally as well as in Finland.

In addition to his reputation as a film maker Lehmuskallio is also known as an artist. An exhibition of Lehmuskallio's wood carvings was organized during DocPoint festival. The latest joint film by Markku Lehmuskallio and Anastasia Lapsui, Mother's of Life, had its premiere as the opening film of the festival.