KÄSKY (Tears of April)
directed by: Aku Louhimies
written by: Jari Olavi Rantala (screenplay), Leena Lander (novel)
produced by: Aleksi Bardy, Christoph Thoke, George Charalambides, Christine Ioannou & Nicholas Moutselos
Director of photography: Rane Ronkanen
Main cast:
Pihla Viitala (Miina Malin)
Samuli Vauramo (Aaro Harjula)
Eero Aho (Emil Hallenberg)
TEARS OF APRIL
1918 - the Finnish Civil War has just ended. The victorious Whites hunt down the remainig socialist Reds.
One of the white soldiers, jaeger Aaro Harjula (Samuli Vauramo), has recently returned from Germany. The young idealist is shocked to see how a group of female red soldiers are gang-raped and then executed without a trial.
An enemy soldier, Miina (Pihla Viitala) survives, and Harjula decides to take her to be court marshalled despite the objections of his superiors.
The film is based on the novel “KÄSKY” by Finnish author Leena Lander: An edgy love story in the midst of the horrors of actual historical events.
The newly born nation of Finland was delivered with over 40 000 victims that mainly died after the war in concentration camps and outside of the actual battlefields. Scars of the conflict still exist within the Finnish Society.