theothervoicefilm / theothervoicefilm

Trailer

Synopsis

It is parliamentary election spring 2019. Jukka, a professor from the University of Helsinki and a first time parliamentary candidate, is walking to the kick-off event, and receives praise for his candidacy even up to the future world famous prime minister of Finland. Jukka is determined to change the lousy University Act. At the same time, education and science professionals, Gaela, Lena and Taina, go through their own battle to be able to teach and research – struggling with law case, layoffs, lack of resources and dysfunctional structures. However, the biggest resistance is The Finnish anti-education and anti-science Government, which changes every four years.

The Other Voice is Annika Grof’s edgy and popping collage film about four academics and one cinematographer. Finland has been famous as a model country for democracy and education, but the film reflects the current tragic situation of the university to the recent past’s national political twists and turns revealing the flaws of the country’s democracy.

Director Statement

Governments come and governments go, but disinterest by politicians on science and education remains. In the constantly changing world, we need something stable, someone said.

Known as a filmmaker who gets excited by topics considered unexciting, I wanted to dig into the world of education policy and find out the reason behind blightning the universities that has been going on for over a decade in Finland. And there’s more: I wanted to make a poppish, groovy and entertaining film about it. What do you say about that?

After finding a producer who was reckless enough, main characters who were brave enough and a camera I could use, I started to delineate a film which would blow the audience off their seats. I was determined to bring the plight of science into daylight. Science, which is pushed in the shadows of politics because it doesn’t bring votes to politicians’ pockets, because the citizens don’t understand a smidgen about its significance to themselves.

Did I succeed resolving the reasons behind the current ridiculous situation in universities? Did I manage to make a poppish film? Did I finally learn how to pull focus on the complicated camera lense? I hope you all see yourselves and find out!

– Annika Grof, writer & director of The Other Voice