The controversial puppet animation entitled Uralin perhonen (”Butterfly from the Urals”) by director Katariina Lillqvist has won the prize for the best Finnish animation at the international Tampere Film Festival.
The film depicts Marshal Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (1867-1951), the Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces during the World War II and the President of Finland from 1944 to 1946, as a corset-wearing homosexual who brings a Kirghiz youth from behind the Urals to serve as his valet and lover.
The animation is based on an old ballad from Tampere’s working-class district of Pispala, where people were not sympathetic towards Mannerheim, in part for his involvement on the White side in the Civil War of 1918.
The animation awakened a major storm among some Finns, for whom Mannerheim remains something of a national icon, and the director received hate mail.
The Canadian animationMadame Tutli-Putli received the 2008 Grand Prix, winning also the Best Animation prize and the audience awards.
The film depicts a fantastical journey of a woman hovering in between reality and imagination. The directors of the film were Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski.
A total of 74 films from 45 countries took part in the International Competition, while the Finnish Competition featured 39 films.
