Freemasons, soothsayers and mystics abounded in Finland a hundred years ago. Documentary filmmaker Ukko Torni presents the history of the occult without the horror.
Torni has used researchers from the University of Turku’s multi-year New Seekers project as the basis and experts for the work, but also contemporary mysticism enthusiasts and practitioners have a voice.
Ukko Torni says he is a man of concrete things, whose mind is attracted mainly to storytelling. His own understanding of why so many people associated with intellectuals studied and practised rituals a century ago increased as a result of making the documentary.
– For example, the invention of X-rays, a lot of things came to man at that time that were not visible but were real. People must have thought that there could be all sorts of invisible forces and the spirit world seemed possible,” says Torni.
Koli was a mystical inspiration
The work also has other contact surfaces with Eastern Finland. Koli in particular influenced many artists.
The Huntu documentary was made in a year, which meant 10,000 kilometers of driving for Torni after the material and in the final stages editing sessions scheduled around the clock from three in the morning to three in the afternoon. This pace of work is because the father of two children under the age of 3 has also been doing custom work for his company during the day at the same time.
– I financed the making of the documentary with commercial gigs. But time is ticking, I was at the end of this and now I’m taking paternity leave.
The documentary will possibly be shown at other festivals in addition to Rokument, but instead of an external distributor, Torni also plans to sell the film directly to viewers online. Interest was already evident during the making of the film, as funding was collected for Hunnu through a crowdfunding campaign.
Huntu differs in its approach from previous programs dealing with the occult.
– This topic has had a stigma that esotericism is dangerous nonsense. Now is the time to deal with the issue neutrally. No one who was asked to participate refused and we also have a church perspective.