Love and Anarchy (Rakkautta ja Anarkiaa) is the biggest film festival in Finland, that has been organised since 1988. Like many great happenings in our land this is made by a non-profit organisation, not by a company. Besides a few hired very driven workers this event needs about two hundred volunteers per year to make it happen. The main event is eleven days long that shows over 400 screenings (films and short films combined) in multiple different cinemas in Helsinki city. Besides this there were many side-events like movie quizzes, art exhibitions (of Belzebubs comic, that is now a movie!), and most importantly the Finnish Film Affair, which is a special event for film and television professionals. This festival a grand project each year, which keeps growing and getting better each year. And I was honoured to be part of the people making it possible!
From rejection, to anarchy, and love
Last year 2025 I volunteered for the first time to the event. I worked in the construction and dismantling team, which in the end was not so physically laborous task. This year I applied for the photo team, and was surprised to hear the news that I was not selected. Possibly because I didn’t provide a proper portfolio, but just a link to my Instagram page, where I have photos of black metal live gigs and other extreme and strange material, related to music. Basically very few photos where worshipping satan and/or death is not the topic, so that might have caused the rejection. Lucku for me the bad news did offer me something better in return: a possibility to join the announcement team – which is responsible for telling the audience things about the film before screening. Since I’ve performed stand up comedy, and I’ve been a teacher at many courses and training sessions, I knew I could do this job as well. I was told I’m expected to learn about the films beforehand, and then do the speech writing myself, I already knew this is a task I would enjoy maybe even more than being a photographer.
The contract with the organiser for volunteer compensation are the film passes with a simple principle: work for X amount of hours, and you will receive Y amount of tickets. If one works for total Z hours, they will receive a full festival pass, that will give unlimited access to movies, with some restrictions. This same principle applies to of the volunteer teams, that certain amount of work is needed to gain access to movies and the pass. Besides this we are invited to a pre- and after-party, and to some special screenings of movies. Only restriction we have to the festival pass is the we can reserve tickets to movies only 10 minutes before it starts, meaning that sold-out movies are out of reach sometimes. Personally I still think this was a great deal, that definitely made me go and see movies that I would have not considered otherwise. This year one ticket would have cost 14€.
After being told I’m part of the team my first task was to join the pre-event / party, where more information and accreditation was given. This was organised in a bar & movie theatre Kino Korjaamo in Helsinki. At this evening event I met my team leader for the first time face to face, and met many of the other volunteers. We heard the opening speech by leaders of the organisation. That was followed by game of werwolf, that is a fun board game, where participants have to act and play roles, which proved to be more entertaining that some of the films that I saw later. Also a movie based tarot-card reading happened where two guys dressed in cheap wizard outfits explained how seeing the movie that I just randomly picked from the program deck would help with my life issues. I’ve forgotten their hilarious improvised telling of the stars (or energies idk?), as well as the movie I should have seen, but most importantly a good memory of the reading is what remains. Game time was followed by screening of short-films, designed just for us. The pre-party was a fun event, that made it possible for people who most, but not all, are Finns and not-that-social to get to know their crew in the upcoming film festival adventure.
Greetings left by the audience.
Dedication to the Devils
My first real task for the event was to learn about the horror / drama movie The Devils, that shocked the world in 1971 so badly, that in many countries (including Finland) it became banned from screening for decades. Now I was to be presenting this famous work of film history at its first Finnish movie theather screening ever! What an honour I was given! To make this happening even more weird to me was the fact that nobody from the organisation was going to read what I’m about to say in front of a live audience, in the biggest film event in the whole country, and about a film that is filled with blasphemy, critiscism of politics and religion, with a good amount of explicit sex scenes in the mix. Firstly this was obviously my kind of movie. If a film has crucifixion, bible burning AND a orgy of nuns it’s already classified as a great movie in mind.
One thing to explain about Finnish culture and society is that a lot of things here are based on trust. Often we are trusted to do the right thing, without somebody watching over you, and we generally do that. Which is one of the things I really love about our society that it still works like that. I did my best with the announcement text of course. I studied about the film, director Ken Russell and cast, to provide some interesting information about the film, but not give away anything about the plot itself. I added some humour in the end of my speech: “… and in the name of the DEVIL …. I kindly ask you to turn off notifications from your mobile phones, and smart devices…”. That luckily got a few laughs (this did not happen with all my jokes in other movies).
To ge the full film pass I signed up to announce 10 screenings. Besides this I watched a few films, and I missed a couple films that I wanted to see, because I didn’t purchase a ticket, and these became sold-out before I could use my festival pass.
My research process quickly became quite good. The more I learned about the films, the easier the actual writing part got, and with it also grew my interest for the movie itself. Also speaking in front of the audience got easier each time, but never became easy. I felt a rush of heat each time walking to the stage, and sometimes I saw the lines of the text jumping up and down while trying to read, and felt the judging stare of the audience. But still I went through each text with the confidence that I gained from doing the research and writing the text myself. I wanted to give the audience some tips what to look for in the film, and give some idea why this film was made in the first place. How it felt for the audience, I can only guess.
The festival days go by too quickly as a volunteer with our tasks, watching movies when possible, and then waiting at the volunteer’s lounge. This reserved space always had some snacks and treats to eat. Safe space principles were in use, just like at the whole event itself. We had really nice people volunteering at the lounge who took care of us. One lady who, probably was retired from work life already, worked there, and she always wanted to make sure I’ve had something to eat like a grandmother would. She was maybe the oldest volunteer we had, and the youngest ones are in their early twenties probably. Volunteers used the lounge area so relax between duties, and to talk about movies. I heard a lot of good recommendations there. Being amongst others people who have a passion for cinema was truly one of the best things about the event!
Love and Anarchy shows films that are not always the most easiest. For me two screenings per day was a good amount, and the third of the day might have been too much to ask from my limited daily attention capacity. Looking back on it now, I enjoyed every day of the festival that I could attend. I really felt I’m part of the team making this event happen, and I could feel how the audience reacted and enjoyed it.
Last volunteering event together was the volunteers party (we call these karonkka in Finnish). An old villa, and a sauna of course, was reserved for us for the evening. Food and drinks were offered by the organisation. Some awards were given to volunteers, whom had done an exceptionally good work. For example one was awarded as the ‘best place to put a R&A poster’, which had been located on a ferry in northern Lapland. We also had a movie quiz, that really showed the movie knowledge skill of the people, because the level to reach the podium was extremely hard. Evening closed with an activity almost as Finnish as the sauna – Karaoke. Which didn’t have a problem of not getting enough singers to go and perform.
Movie quiz at karonkka. Guess the film by these three emojis. The correct answer: The Big Lebowski.
The atmosphere was friendly and open, and I had the time to talk with many volunteers and most of them from other teams. I did’t hear a single negative thing about the event itself, except the fact that we didn’t get to see all we wanted because of sold-out screenings.
For me this was once again a great experience to be part of making an event like this happen. Love and Anarchy is about showing films that break borders, take a stance and are visually beautiful. As a fan of cinema I was honoured to be part of working at this great event! Hopefully I can attend next year, when the festival celebrates its 40th year.
Official site: https://hiff.fi/
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