30/08/2024 - Penned by Ossi Hakala, the Finnish-Latvian co-production is set in a post-climate-change world on the verge of destruction and sees a physicist sent back in time to save humankind

Arto Halonen is putting the finishing touches to his latest feature, an eco-sci-fi tale titled After Us, the Flood [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Cineuropa has learnt. The Finnish filmmaker, active in the fields of both fiction and documentary, debuted with his feature Princess in 2010, a drama that racked up 300,000 domestic admissions and proved to be one of the most-watched films in Finnish theatres that decade. Other prominent works of his include the Finnish-Croatian co-production A Patriotic Man [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2013), the psychological thriller The Guardian Angel [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2018) and his latest family drama, Arnold Cautious and the Happiness Stone (2023).

The story of After Us, the Flood, penned by Ossi Hakala, is set in 2064, in a post-climate-change world on the verge of destruction. The UN has developed a form of time travel: a person’s memories and their personality along with them can be transmitted to the past, to the person themselves at the moment of their birth. Henrik, a brilliant but narcissistic physicist, has been chosen for a mission to publish the blueprints of the fusion reactor – based on his invention – to the entire world and thus prevent climate change from ever happening. But something goes wrong: Henrik is born in the wrong body and must learn humility while living his new life. The team bills the film as “a science-fiction drama about relationships, identity, greed and the reasons why humans are unable to stop climate change”.

Hakala further explains: “The goal from day one was to write a screenplay that would be both ambitious and intimate. At its core, science fiction isn't about spectacle, but about ideas. So, it was a natural choice to work with. A populist film meant for a wide audience gets a bad rap these days – and for a reason. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t need to aim for the lowest common denominator in order to have a long reach. The biggest movie of the year should also be the best movie of the year.”

Halonen adds: “When I read the script of the film, I immediately felt it as my own. Inside the time-travelling premise and the sci-fi veneer was a multi-layered, deep and touching story. I felt that with all the entertaining twists and turns, viewers could also be invited to reflect on their lives, self-improvement and responsibility for their own choices.”

The cast is led by Elias Westerberg (playing Markku), Linnea Leino (Julia), Tuomas Nilsson (Henrik) and Kasperi Kola (Sakari). Supporting roles are portrayed by Petteri Summanen, Pihla Penttinen, Antti Reini, Jari Salmi, Tobias Zilliacus, Jemina Sillanpää, Robert Enckell, Hannu-Pekka Björkman, Vilma Sippola, Paavo Westerberg, Andrei Alén, Hugo Komaro, Juho Räihä and Saima Vainionpää.

Key crew members are DoP Pini Hellstedt, production designer Teppo Järvinen, costume designer Jaana Aro, make-up designer Maija Gundare, editor Armands Začs, sound designer Jevgēnijs Kobzevs and composer Jēkabs Nīmanis.

Speaking of his work on set, Järvinen reveals: “The main idea for the production design was to visualise the dualistic world of the script: things like today versus the future, rich versus poor, educated versus uneducated, or hard childhood versus loving family. The look of the dystopian future could easily have been overdesigned, but our smaller budget actually helped keep the visions unexaggerated. It was fun to imagine and design objects that might be available in the future.”

Budgeted at €1,715,000, After Us, the Flood is being produced by Halonen himself for Finland’s Art Films Production, and co-produced by Aija Bērziņa for Latvia’s Tasse Film. The pic received financing from the Finnish Film Foundation, YLE, the Nordisk Film & TV Fond, the Riga Film Fund, LIAA – Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, the city of Tampere and Film Tampere Finland. It will hit Finnish theatres on 5 December 2024. Denmark’s REinvent Studios is selling it worldwide, whilst StoryHill Oy is distributing it in Finland and Scandinavian Film Distribution in the other Nordic countries.