Memories Move Like Distant Islands

Peatlands cover 30% of Finland’s surface and have long held a vital place in the nation’s cultural history and folklore. Yet for years, they have been under threat, drained by commercial exploitation and expanding human activity. Their surface area is steadily shrinking, their biodiversity fading, their structure and function irrevocably altered. With a 16mm camera and a quiet sense of melancholy, filmmaker Saarlotta Virri reflects on how a country that drains its lands may also be draining its stories — and reshaping its very identity. Her film reveals the unforeseen, often whimsical and at times tragic consequences of this slow desiccation, while also illuminating the ways in which past landscapes persist in the present. Weaving together oral myth, archival fragments, and observational footage, the film becomes a playful and poignant meditation on time, memory, and the quiet magic that lingers in everyday life.

Anne Delseth

Memories Move Like Distant Islands, 2025
In the Midst of Chaos There Was Shape, 2023
Practice, 2022
Verses From the Cemetery, 2021