Regissör: Mikko Makela

There has been a real lack of queer narratives in Finnish cinema, and that is why I initially set out to make this film - to fill the queer void, so to speak. However, I didn't simply want to address sexual diversity in the film but also highlight the limits of modern Finland as a multicultural society, and address the pockets of racism (and homophobia) that still very much exist in a society which likes to think of itself as fairly progressive. I wanted to make a film that was Finnish and un-Finnish at the same time, a film that contained multiple perspectives onto my native country. Importantly, I wanted to stage this opening up of traditional Finnish society by these characters usually relegated to its margins, in the most iconic of Finnish milieus, the summery lakeside. My main objective in making the film was to challenge Finland into acknowledging the diversity that exists within it - to confront the homogeny of the mainstream with the difference that has been marginalised as “un-Finnish” for so long.