Letters From Karelia
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“Maybe it’s because of my own Finnish background and because of the turbulent, polarized political situation today, but I found Letters from Karelia to the most dramatic documentary film I’ve ever seen” Oren Tikkanen, New World Finn, Spring 2005.Taimi Pitkanen last saw her brother Aate (AH-tay) in a Leningrad railway station in 1931. Taimi was returning to Canada from Moscow; Aate was headed for Soviet Karelia, on the border with Finland, where his skills in electricity and languages – both English and Finnish – were badly needed. Aate never came back. Even when the dream went sour, Aate held on, writing home until, in 1941, Hitler attacked the USSR. After that, no one in Canada heard anything more of Aate Pitkanen. Sixty years later, the discovery of his last letters – written but never mailed from a Finnish prisoner-of-war camp – reveals his fate and brings together Taimi and Alfred, the son Aate never met. Visiting Taimi in Canada, Alfred Pitkanen learns the dramatic story of his father’s Canadian family and of “Karelia Fever,” the enthusiasm that gripped so many Finnish Canadians in the 1930s. Almost forgotten now, it lured thousands to a tragic fate in the Soviet Union. Alfred Pitkanen follows his father’s journey from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to Karelia, from a young communist pioneer to a ski champion in the USSR to Soviet spy in World War Two. With him we learn Aate’s fate and the story of one of the great dreams of the Twentieth Century. |
Order the Film – Go to Associated Publication
Screenings and Festivals
| ScreeningsCinefest | Sudbury, Ontario | September 26 2004 |
| International Film Festival | Calgary, Alberta | September 29 2004 |
| Waverley Resource Library | Thunder Bay, Ontario | February 22 2005 |
| Shadows of the Mind Film festival | Sault Ste Marie, Ontario | February 23-27 2005 |
| Kingston Graduate Students Conference | Kingston, Ontario | March 19-26 2005 |
| RiverRun International Film Festival | Winston-Salem, North Carolina | April 21-24 2005 |
Credits
| Director: | Kelly Saxberg |
| Producer: | Joseph MacDonald |
| Narrator: | Liisa Repo Martell |
| Cast: | Ville Haapasalo Alfred Pitkanen Taimi Davis |
| Historical Consultant and Researcher: | Varpu Lindstrom |
| Writer: | Robert Lower |
| Cinematographer: | Richard Stringer |
| Original Music/Composer: | Ari Ladhekorpi |
| Picture Editor: | Kelly Saxberg |
| Sound Editor: | Danny Johnson |
Links
National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
Ville Haapasalo (actor)
InCamera – October 2003: A voice from the past: Letters from Karelia
From Russia With Film (by Richard Stringer C.S.C.)
Canadian Film Insititute
York University’s YFile
Ari Lahdekorpi (musician)
