Guests
LUIGI COZZI
Olivier Strecker
Luigi Cozzi (b. 1947 in Busto Arsizio, Italy), the headliner retrospective guest of the November 2024 edition of Night Visions International Film Festival, arrives to Helsinki from Rome.
An expert of genre cinema initially in the capacity of a journalist and subsequently as a director and screenwriter, Cozzi’s career in film spans over seven decades. A lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy, he started collaborating with Dario Argento in the 1970s on multiple projects, earning credits for instance for the original story of Argento’s The Cat o’ Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (both 1971), for the script for The Five Days (1973), and for the special effects of Phenomena (1985).
As a director, his focus has always remained on science fiction, horror, and fantasy. He has worked with screen icons such as the Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer, David Hasselhoff, Klaus Kinski, Donald Pleasence, Caroline Munro, Lou Ferrigno, Sybil Danning, Ian McCulloch, and Daria Nicolodi.
The retrospective of Cozzi’s work as a director and a screenwriter now presented at the festival includes four features that are elemental in his filmography. Starcrash (1979) is Cozzi’s riff on space opera à la Star Wars. Contamination (1980) is a wonderful mix of Ridley Scott’s Alien, a spy adventure, and gross out horror. In Hercules (1983), the tradition of Italian sword-and-sandal adventures meets sense of wonder and amazing science fiction elements. The Black Cat (1989) is a psychedelic horror trip that evolved from the original script of the third installment of Dario Argento’s The Three Mothers trilogy.
Alongside his career as a director and a screenwriter, Cozzi has also worked as the second unit director on Dario Argento’s half of the Edgar Allan Poe anthology Two Evil Eyes (1990) and The Stendhal Syndrome (1996).
Cozzi returned to directing and writing fictional (horror) features with Blood on Méliès’ Moon, released in 2016.
Luigi Cozzi will be presenting the Night Visions screenings of his films to the audience:
Starcrash on Wednesday, November 13, at 07.30 PM at Kinopalatsi 9
The Black Cat on Thursday, November 14, at 07.35 PM at Kinopalatsi 9
Hercules on Friday, November 15, at 04.45 PM at Kinopalatsi 9
Contamination on Saturday, November 16, at 08.15 PM at Kinopalatsi 2
CAN EVRENOL
Can Evrenol arrives to Helsinki with his latest feature SAYARA, a female driven, action packed tale of terror and brutal revenge.
Born in Istanbul in 1982, Evrenol’s earliest memories about storytelling are the scenarios he created with his Kenner’s Star Wars toys, Mattel’s He-Man, and Hasbro’s GI Joe action figures, fuelled by his parents’ love for cinema, architecture, renaissance art, and classical music. His father’s favorite movie was 2001: A Space Odyssey. His mother’s favorite director was Pasolini. His favorite bed time story was The Old Man And The Sea. At the age of 7, he was in love with his Manowar cassettes, and his Rom The Space Knight comics. He spent hours watching Conan, RoboCop, Goonies, James Bond, Rocky IV endlessly on their beat up Betamax.
Evrenol is a proud graduate of Istanbul’s Uskudar American Academy, where his literature teacher William Chisholm had a profound influence. He cites the class discussions of such novels as The Lord of The Flies, Catcher In the Rye, A Separate Peace, 1984, The Martian Chronicles, All My Sons, as his earliest education in cinematic narration.
Upon graduating from The University of Kent at Canterbury in joint honours; Art History and Film Studies, he attended NYFA in LA, for a brief 8-week filmmaking workshop, where he shot his first short film Screws / Vidalar, based on a short story by Sulhi Dolek.
While making short films as a hobby, he’s always been a cult film buff first. His favorite directors include Tarantino, Cronenberg, Lynch, Kubrick, Romero, Fulci, Haneke, Noe, Takashi Miike, Chris Cunningham, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Demirkubuz. His friendship with fellow cinephiles Yigit Unan, Yesim Tabak, Murat Tolga Sen, Eren Akay and Evrim Ersoy expanded his gusto for the weirdest, rarest and the most diverse films he can get his hands onto.
While having no experience in any movie sets, Evrenol toured film festivals around the world with his gung-ho, do-it-all-yourself, b-movie-meets-arthouse short films.
In 2010, he was at Sitges International Film Festival with his award winning short film To My Mother and Father, where he met Reha Erdem and Omer Atay, who offered him a job as a TVC director at Atlantik Film in Istanbul.
Through valuable friends and network he met through Atlantik Film’s commercial sets, he made two independent horror feature films, Baskin (2015) and Housewife (2017), a segment in the folk horror anthology The Field Guide to Evil (2018), and a low budget post-apocalyptic kids-on-a-mission movie Girl with No Mouth (2019).
His feature debut Baskin has become a mini cult classic, premiering at Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness section, winning the Best New Director award at Fantastic Fest, and selling to over 40 countries.
Can Evrenol will be presenting Saỷara to the Night Visions audience at its both festival screenings:
Thursday, November 14, at 07.30 PM at Kinopalatsi 5
Saturday, November 16, at 05.45 PM at Kinopalatsi 2
JUSTIN HARDY
Arriving to Helsinki from the UK, Justin Hardy contributes to the Night Visions festivities by presenting his latest feature length documentary CHILDREN OF THE WICKER MAN to the festival audiences together with his producer Chris Nunn. The two will also be presenting the festival screening of the 4K restoration of THE WICKER MAN.
Dr Hardy is a practising filmmaker and university lecturer in film across London. His films have won multiple awards, including BAFTA and RTS, and been nominated for Emmy and Grierson. He has a chapter of a book in current publication for UCL Press (Lockdown Cultures, ed. Stella Bruzzi) and two books due for 2024 (A New Genre? for MUP, and Filmmaker as Historian for Palgrave).
Hardy’s most recent films include The 50 Ton Pot Run (Locked Up Abroad) for Raw TV/Disney Plus and The Windsors: Behind the Royal Dynasty for Raw TV/CNN.
His academic range covers factual as well as fiction, theory and practice, with specialisms in the British factual industry since 2000 (as an independent production company).
Justin Hardy will be presenting the following Night Visions screenings to the audience alongside Christopher Nunn:
Children of The Wicker Man on Friday, November 15, at 04.50 PM at Kinopalatsi 2
The Wicker Man on Saturday, November 16, at 03.40 PM at Kinopalatsi 1
Children of The Wicker Man on Saturday, November 16, at 06.00 PM at Kinopalatsi 9
JIM HOSKING
Jim Hosking arrives to Helsinki from the UK with his third feature EBONY AND IVORY. Following its world premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, in September, Night Visions is extremely proud to host the European premiere screenings of this mind-blowingly original feature.
Hosking’s first feature The Greasy Strangler premiered at Sundance in 2016. It went on to win Best Comedy at the Empire Film Awards and The Discovery Award at the British Independent Film Awards. It had its Finnish premiere in the Official Selection of Night Visions. Later on, Finland ended up being the only country in Scandinavia where The Greasy Strangler got a proper theatrical release.
Hosking’s second feature An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn premiered at Sundance in 2018. Starring Aubrey Plaza, Jemaine Clement, Matt Berry and Craig Robinson among others, it also had its Finnish premiere at Night Visions and was subsequently released theatrically in Finland.
In total Hosking has had four projects premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, including the pilot for Tropical Cop Tales (2018-2019), the show he made for Adult Swim.
Jim Hosking will be presenting the Night Visions screenings of his films to the audience:
Ebony and Ivory on Wednesday, November 13, at 05.25 PM at Kinopalatsi 9
The Greasy Strangler on Friday, November 15, at 09.30 PM at Kinopalatsi 2
Ebony and Ivory on Saturday, November 16, at 08.15 PM at Kinopalatsi 9
KALLE KINNUNEN
SHADOWLAND, now presented in the Official Selection of Night Visions as a Nordic premiere, is the first feature-length documentary produced and co-written by Kalle Kinnunen. A film journalist since 1998, Kinnunen is known as the film critic for the prestigious news weekly Suomen Kuvalehti and as an author of eight books on cinema, the Finnish audiovisual industry, and music. In the noughties, Kinnunen was also part of the Night Visions programming team. In 2019, he received the Finnish State Prize for Cinema, becoming the first non-filmmaker to be awarded the prize in its six-decade history.
SCOOTER McCRAE
Scooter McCrae comes to Helsinki from the East coast of the US to leave a lasting impression on the Night Visions audiences with his third feature Black Eyed Susan, stunningly shot on 16mm film and featuring a score by the one and only Fabio Frizzi.
McCrae made his first feature Shatter Dead over 30 years ago. Since then, he made his second feature Sixteen Tongues (1999) and the short Saint Frankenstein (2015), so he has been long overdue for a third and final feature.
McCrae is pleased as punch to have a limited body of work that has been compromised only by budget and never by ideas or ambition, and he hopes you find the final results entertaining.
Scooter McCrae will be presenting Black Eyed Susan to the Night Visions audience at its both festival screenings:
Thursday, November 14, at 05.25 PM at Kinopalatsi 9
Saturday, November 16, at 10.30 PM at Kinopalatsi 9
CHRIS NUNN
Hailing from the UK, producer Chris Nunn attends Night Visions presenting the feature length documentary CHILDREN OF THE WICKER MAN together with its director Justin Hardy. The two will also be presenting the festival screening of the 4K restoration of THE WICKER MAN.
Dr Nunn is Assistant Professor of Film at the Russell Group University of Birmingham (top 20 in UK; top 100 internationally). His research specialises in filmmaking education, and former students have gone on to win at the BAFTAs and RTS, as well as be nominated for Grierson and student Academy Awards. His research extends into cult film and television.
Chris Nunn will be presenting the following Night Visions screenings to the audience alongside Justin Hardy:
Children of The Wicker Man on Friday, November 15, at 04.50 PM at Kinopalatsi 2
The Wicker Man on Saturday, November 16, at 03.40 PM at Kinopalatsi 1
Children of The Wicker Man on Saturday, November 16, at 06.00 PM at Kinopalatsi 9
OTSO TIAINEN
Now presented in the Official Selection of Night Visions as a Nordic premiere, SHADOWLAND is the first feature-length documentary directed by Otso Tiainen. In addition to directing, Tiainen co-wrote the film together with his producer Kalle Kinnunen for the production company Bufo, recognized for their work on the latest Aki Kaurismäki features.
Tiainen is a Helsinki-based director known for his work in documentary television and music video production, blending cultural exploration with dynamic storytelling. He won his first awards in 2002 as a self-taught director of music videos for major Finnish artists. Following his success in music videos, Tiainen transitioned to directing commercials for prestigious clients.
In 2012, Tiainen created and directed Sami Yaffa: Sound Tracker, a groundbreaking music travelogue series starring Sami Yaffa, former bassist of Hanoi Rocks and New York Dolls. The series, produced in a partnership of Finland’s Gimmeyawallet Productions and public broadcaster Yle, ran for three seasons (2014–2016). Sami Yaffa: Sound Trackerbecame a crossover hit in Finland, earning Tiainen two Venla Awards (the Finnish equivalent of the Emmy) and a nomination for Best Director. The show was acquired by Netflix for select territories.
Tiainen started working on SHADOWLAND in 2016. In the interim, he created and directed two seasons of visual arts documentary series Meeri Koutaniemi – Irti kuvasta (2021-2023).
Otso Tiainen will be presenting Shadowland to the Night Visions audience alongside his co-writer and producer Kalle Kinnunen at the film’s Nordic premiere screening on Friday, November 15, at 07.00 PM at Kinopalatsi 1.