Literature - thisisFINLAND

“Plans are just plans”: Prize-winning Finnish film traces train trip to northern Russia

Director Juho Kuosmanen tells us about the adventure of making an unusual road movie that won the Grand Prix at Cannes.

Finland’s Moomin stories pop up at multilingual Read Hour event in Reykjavík, Iceland

The Finnish initiative Read Hour takes place on UN International Literacy Day. We visit a Read Hour event in Reykjavík, Iceland, where Sophia Jansson, niece of Moomin creator Tove Jansson, talks about the famous characters and reads aloud from one of the stories.

Arts & culture Environment

Finnish film industry features carbon-neutral production

Reduction of carbon emissions is trending in the film industry. We visit an island off the coast of Finland to see what it takes to make a carbon-neutral movie.

Library books borrowed per person per year

Arts & culture Literature

“The world was very large in those days”: A brief guide to Finland’s Moomin books

Here’s our concise list of the Moomin novels, by Tove Jansson, perhaps Finland’s most famous writer and artist. Relive the adventures, or, if you’ve only seen the comic strips, discover the original books. Plus: A slideshow takes you inside the National Museum’s Moomin exhibition.

Arts & culture Film

Filming the unusual story of Moomin creator Tove Jansson in Helsinki

We speak to director Zaida Bergroth about a film that shows viewers a new side of Finland’s Tove Jansson, the much-loved writer and artist who created the world-famous Moomin stories.

Arts & culture Design

How Finland’s Moomins moved from beloved books to coveted mugs

The first Moomin book, in 1945, introduced a cast of characters that gained international fame. We talk to the designer behind one of the most unusual Moomin success stories: the mugs that you can find in almost every Finnish household. They’re so popular that someone even wrote a master’s thesis about them.

Arts & culture Webpick

Finnish theatre tells the story of humankind

In a breathtaking feat of dramatic construction, a group of Helsinki-based theatre-makers condenses hundreds of thousands of years of human history into just 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Arts & culture Literature

Finland’s first feminist: Why Minna Canth’s writing is still important

We speak to author Minna Rytisalo about how the work of playwright, author and social activist Minna Canth remains relevant today.