Cinema Can Do The Future: Cinéma Laika

It’s not just Arsenal that’s building a new cinema. The focus of the many cinemas newly founded in the last years – in Berlin and beyond – is on community. At a time when films can be seen everywhere at any time, cinemas are being grasped first and foremost as meeting places. CINÉMA LAIKA goes to the Finnish provinces to observe how such a place of community is created. In Karkkila, a town of 9000 inhabitants in the midst of forests and historically linked to the iron ore industry, a new cinema with a wine bar attached is put together in an unused factory hall with the enthusiastic participation of the local population. That watching films together and talking about them afterwards is already an established practice is in Karkkila can be seen in their many small group conversations. Whoever thinks of Aki Kaurismäki and his films when seeing the lovingly, laconically portrayed inhabitants of the town is not entirely wrong: the director doesn’t live far from Karkkila and runs Kino Laika together with artist Mika Lätti, who was also responsible for its construction. (al)