Masterclass Virpi Suutari

Naked Fellow Creatures - Photography in Between Fact and Fiction

Saturday 20 September Inkonst Theater 13.00

In the masterclass seminar director Virpi Suutari presents samples of her movies and tells about photos, paintings and movies that have inspired her.

“I have always seeked more influence from photography and painting than from movies. I perceive a picture as a stage, where the main characters play themselves and present their lives. I like photos and paintings because they seldom psychologize or moralize, we can interpret the picture freely and make our own observations: the person’s posture, gestures, gaze, milieu, they are all hints for our imagination of the person’s occupation, what kind of life the person has lived and which social class the person belongs to.

In an impressive picture the biological and cultural erosion, life ́s cultural wounds – both comical and tragic - are visible and etched on the body. In chaos art reduces to the essential. That is why photographs and paintings and films influenced by them- for example by Martin Parr, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Roy Andersson, Lucian Freud - have inspired and contributed to my work.”

Virpi Suutari is a writer and a director, whose works typically explore the boundary between fact and fiction. Suutari’s work includes the documentaries like Sin (1996), The idle ones (2001), Along the road little child ( 2005) – co-directed with Susanna Helke - and Auf Wiedersehen Finnland (2010), Hilton! (2013) and Garden Lovers (2014).