Remembrance – A Small Movie About Oulu in the 1950s

A master of archival filmmaking, Peter Von Bagh spent his childhood and early teens in the small Finnish town of Oulu. There, he went to the cinema for the first time and fell in love with it. There, as a child, he experienced the aftermath of the bombing of his hometown during World War II. In Remembrance, he revisits Oulu and reconstructs its turbulent history, from the 1940s to the present day, as well as his own past. Found footage, historical reels, paintings, poetry and other artefacts related to Oulu are masterfully composed to form a poignant portrait of both time and place, concrete and universal at once. Von Bagh’s personal journey becomes an archaeological adventure and works as a magical ‘time machine’, proving that cinema is the best keeper of time and memories.