ICA Presents Teuvo Tulio's Lost Masterpieces
The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London is showing a series of Teuvo Tulio's films previously unseen in the UK, from the 16th to the 23rd of December 2011.
Thanks to the Finnish National Archive's restorations of four of director Teuvo Tulio's (1912-2000) seminal works, UK audiences will be at last able to discover the films of Finland's national treasure. Tulio specialised in melodrama and his spectacular depictions of suffering and sex have had a major influence over many film directors, such as Aki Kaurismäki and Guy Maddin.
The films shown in ICA will divide into Tulio's earlier work that visions lusty Finns frolicking in the haystacks of rural pre-war Europe and the later ‘social issue' films that explore the lives of women forced by poverty to leave the safety of the countryside for the treacherous temptations of employment in the city. His films blend romanticism with unsettling tragedy of city life as he shows how society strips these women of their glamour and dignity pushing them into madness, prostitution and poverty.
As part of the Teuvo Tulio season, ICA will be also showing The Women (1939) by Tulio's idol George Cukor and a pair of contemporary masterpieces, Aki Kaurismäki's The Man Without A Past (Mies vailla menneisyyttä, 2002) and Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World (2003).
Teuvo Tulio's Lost Masterpieces
16 - 23 December 2011
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH