Soundbreaker: The World of Kimmo Pohjonen

Photographer Arno Minkkinen in person!

Kimmo Pohjonen, Finland’s enfant terrible of the accordion, has had a single mission in life: to expand the sound, scope, performance and experience of the instrument to levels never before attempted, seen or heard. This extraordinary film documents Kimmo’s journey from reluctant accordionist—his entire family were players—to creative visionary whose compositions range from classical collaborations with the Kronos String Quartet to explorations into mechanical noise, and accordion wrestling, a popular Finnish sport/dance tradition dating back to the early Olympics. This personal, passionate story is set against a landscape of staggering and desolate beauty in the country of a thousand lakes.

Screening with:
Step Out
Arja Raatikainen | 2012 | Finland | 10m 
A lone man in a business suit wanders off course on his way to work, leaving behind the regular patterns of his life. Blending contemporary dance, everyday movement and parkour influences, Step Out is a journey through multiple psychological, urban and cinematic spaces in which everything is ready to change at the blink of an eye.

North Horizon 
Thomas Freundlich & Valtteri Raekallio | 2012 | Finalnd | 14m  
Shot on location in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, North Horizon combines contemporary dance with the spectacular natural vistas of the high Arctic. In a silent world of wind, waves and ice, abandoned villages stand at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, home now only to forgotten dreams and the wordless tales of the unknown departed. We touch, are touched, leave, and leave our mark—whether a footprint in gravel or the rusting bones of a faraway homeland—to remain for moments or millennia under the cold and arid sky. North Horizon explores these images through the enormous contrasts of scale between the moving human body and the seemingly still, boundless Arctic landscape—a unique artistic and environmental journey from the far edge of the world.

Rain House (Preview) 
Arno Rafael Minkkinen and Kimmo Koskela | Finland | 7m
Join us for a seven minute preview of a feature in development, written and directed by Arno Rafael Minkkinen with cinematography by Soundbreaker director Kimmo Koskela.

In conjunction with this program, Film Society and Dance on Camera will host an exciting new exhibit of photographs by Arno Rafael Minkkinen titled “A Dance of Light: Forty-Years of Self-Portraits by Arno Rafael Minkkinen.” A Finnish/American, Minkkinen has been making art for over 40 years, generating astonishing images that explore his body’s interaction with the physical environment while pushing the boundaries of both portraiture and landscape photography. The exhibition will take place in the Furman Gallery across from the Walter Reade Theater.