"Polar Bear" wins Helsingin Sanomat's competition for video postcards from Finland

152 entries received in light-hearted reply to Eurovision vignettes

print this

A month ago, we ran an article about sending in video postcards from Finland, similar to the short vignettes to be placed between the individual songs at the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final and final.
      More than 150 entries came in from readers of the newspaper, and the winner was chosen on Thursday.
      The motto of the winning entry might be described as "Finland is a cold and rugged country, where determined individuals realise their aims, even if circumstances are sometimes against them".
     
The one-minute clip, played over the sounds of the hymn from Finlandia with piano accompaniment, shows a portly middle-aged man waking up at his summer cottage and wanting a morning swim.
      Unfortunately the lake is frozen.
      Very frozen.
      Nothing daunted, the man hacks a hole in the ice (with an axe!) and steps down from the jetty into the chilly water. After a worryingly long period beneath the surface, the figure that emerges is roughly 25 years younger and in considerably trimmer shape.
     
The winner, who collects a trip to the venue of the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest , is a 23-year-old psychology student from Tampere, Anna Joensuu.
      The production team also included her parents and her boyfriend - who was presumably the younger incarnation of "polar bear" emerging from the lake.
      The video was planned and shot in one day at the Joensuu family's cottage in Hämeenkoski.
     
The competition jury, which included film-makers Lauri Törhönen and Roosa Toivonen, praised the artistic quality of the work and the humorous inclusion of a string of Finnish myths, and they had a special mention for the heroism of the principal actors, standing barefoot on the ice and plunging into the icy water simply for the making of this clip.
      The third jury member Heikki Paasonen agreed, though he would personally have given pride of place to a short item about the construction of that most essential "outer inner sanctum" of Finnish cottage life, the outdoor privy. He said he felt the video "A Very Private Place" captured the essence of Finnish summer cabin life.
      The entries as a whole can be seen at the links below. The competition is now closed. Please note that the attached picture links directly to all the entries. If you want to see the winner, go to the specific link below.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Writing a video postcard from Finland (11.4.2007)

See also:
  The winning video can be seen here, along with others singled out for praise by the competition jury
  Collected Entries (17 pages of videos)

Helsingin Sanomat