At first glance, the Finnish city of Tampere may not seem a particularly feminine city with its industrial look, courtesy of the Finlayson area standing tall in the center as a pièce de résistance. Rich in tradition, this area is well-known for the Finlayson cotton factory that was founded in 1820 and around which the urbs was built.
And yet, Tampere is a warm city located in the heart of Finland, the happiest country in the world. The city is known for its cozy atmosphere and friendly people, boasting a genuine cultural life – one of the factors that makes the local Finns choose this particular city as the most attractive place to live in, year after year. Its industrial history is preserved in the red brick buildings enveloped by the vigorous rapids that run through it. But it’s also the calming lakes and humming forests that surround the city along with the silence of the saunas that make Tampere a captivating place. Its spirit is that of creation and development. Indeed, internationally established and emerging art festivals, immersive exhibitions, original DIY and underground culture, new venues and restaurants make up the city’s vibrant fabric, a fabric of belonging and togetherness.
With a stark architectural and ideological contrast, the Tampere central fire station was built on the Eastern shore of the Tammerkoski rapids and was designed in the art-nouveau style by Tampere native architect Wivi Lönn, the first woman to be awarded the honorary title of “Professor” by the Finnish Association of Architects. She was the fourth female architect in Finland, and the first one to establish her own architectural office.
But other Tampere-born women were crucial in the weaving of the aforementioned fabric.
For instance, Sara Hildén (1905-1993) was a Finnish businesswoman and art collector. After meeting the ceramist Rut Bryk in 1944, she developed an interest in Contemporary Art. This interest was intensified after marrying painter Erik Enroth in 1949. In the 1950s, she opened fashion shops in Tampere and Lahti. Thanks to their success, in 1961 she was able to build an outstanding collection of contemporary Finnish art that was expanded over the years to include items from the world’s top international artists. In 1962, it became the basis of the Sara Hildén Foundation, which led to Tampere’s Sara Hildén Art Museum, opened to the public in 1979. Today, the Foundation organizes exhibitions of both Finnish and international art.
Then there is Minna Canth (1844-1897) who was a Finnish writer and social activist. Canth began to write while managing her family draper’s shop and living as a widow raising seven children. Her work addresses issues of women’s rights, particularly in the context of a prevailing culture she considered antithetical to permitting expression and realization of women’s aspirations. The Worker’s Wife and The Pastor’s Family are her best-known plays, but the play Anna Liisa is the most adapted to films and operas. In her time, she became a controversial figure, due to the asynchrony between her ideas and those of her time, and in part due to her strong advocacy for her point of view. She was also the first woman to receive her own flag flying day in Finland, starting on 19 March 2007. It is also the day of social equality in Finland.
We can’t forget Sanna Marin (b. 1985), the former Finnish Prime Minister from 2019 to 2023 and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) from 2020 to 2023. She was a Member of Parliament from 2015 to 2023. She was re-elected as member of parliament in April 2023, but resigned to become a strategic adviser on political leaders’ reform programs in the Tony Blair Institute in September 2023. Taking office at the age of thirty-four, she was the youngest person to hold the office in Finnish history.
While the Finlayson area may be the key element of the city, there are other notable spaces in Tampere such as the Moomin Museum, home to the world created by Finnish author Tove Jansson (1914-2001). Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Helsinki, Stockholm, and Paris. She held her first solo art exhibition in 1943. Over the same period, she penned short stories and articles for publication, and subsequently drew illustrations for book covers, advertisements, and postcards. She continued her work as an artist and writer for the rest of her life. Jansson wrote the Moomin novel series for children, starting with the 1945 The Moomins and the Great Flood. The following two books, Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll, published in 1946 and 1948 respectively, were highly successful, and sales of the first book increased correspondingly. For her work as a children’s author, she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966; among her many later awards was the Selma Lagerlöf Prize in 1992. Her Moomin stories have been adapted for the theatre, the cinema, and as an opera. The Moomin Museum is one of the few museums dedicated to a female artist in Finland.
But what does one do in winter in Tampere? Tampere being the sauna capital of the world, one might be tempted to take a deep dive in the Finnish sauna culture at the Hangaslahti Sauna or go ice fishing and sledding in the Näsijärvi lake, near the Siilinkari light house. Or, chase the northern lights and go on rides with huskies and reindeers. Or… visit the Tampere Film Festival.
We, at Fade to Her, opted for the sauna experience, the Moomin Museum guided by memories of the 2020 film Tove by Zaida Bergroth, starring Alma Pöysti, and most important of all, the Tampere Film Festival.
The festival was founded in 1968 and is one of the three largest short film festivals in Europe, alongside Clermont-Ferrand in France and Oberhausen in Germany. Hugely popular, the festival’s screenings and other sidebar events attract around 30,000 visitors that revel in the 400 films shown during the cinematic event. The festival is very alert in terms of gender equality and its 2024 program was almost 50/50 when it comes to that. To give you an idea, 6546 films were submitted and 64 short films from 48 countries were selected in the International Competition. Out of these, 43,8 % of films were made by women. “We keep record of that. And, it seems that most of the submitters are males. We try to keep it 50/50, but it doesn’t always happen because sometimes they are not suitable. They don’t fit together or that kind of thing, but we keep it in mind,” Riina Mikkonen, the festival’s Executive Director, tells Fade to Her.
Moreover, this year, the festival screened shorts by stars Anna Hints and Nina Gantz – The Weight of Light and Wander to Wonder, respectively. “I think it’s very nice that people who are making feature films, feature documentaries, still keep making shorts, because it has its own storytelling and its own art form. So, I really appreciate that people who have this success keep making shorts because we are in the margins after all,” says Mikkonen.
She adds: “In Finland, there is very nice phenomenon. I can’t say young any more, because they are my age, my generation, but there’s a lot of storytellers who happen to be female. They have been noticed and they get the money and they can make the films they want to make. It is important that the producers and decision-makers are women. They have to understand the point of view or feeling about giving birth, the menopause… They have to think it’s relevant. Not a story of superheroes. This is everyday life. It happens indoors at home. It’s important that those people who decide on the money and the production also understand the script and the directors’ point of view.”
In that sense, to highlight this sentiment, WIFT Finland organized a panel on the subject during the festival’s Industry Days and is working on achieving the aforementioned goals.
In a manly city, the female spirit endures and lends it a certain je ne sais quoi and its cozy atmosphere. Fragments of it constantly linger in our mind long after we’ve left it. It is a peculiar yet transformative, warm, buzzing and grounded place. You want to come back. And we at Fade to Her certainly hope we do.
