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| Foto: Press |
Paola Suhonen och Olli Happonen, som tillsammans bildar duon Lone Deer Laredo, förgyller idag bloggen med en slags turnéhälsning, en dagbok från det verkliga livet. Duon, som inte finns på sociala medier, vill dra in folk i verkligheten igen och inte låta oss fastna i bubblor på sociala medier där allt bara blir polariserat. Paolas film From the Midnight Sun to Eternity känns som ytterligare ett slags svar på det samhälle som de flesta lever i men som många egentligen inte vill ha, som en hyllning, en road movie till livets motorväg, där det känns som allra mest. Duon har nyligen turnerat med filmen runt om i Finland och nu är albumet Lone Deer Laredo Vol. 3 (producerat av legendariska Brad Jones som bland annat samarbetat med Dolly Parton) på gång. Det landar i slutet av oktober. Senaste singeln är ren magi, som hämtad från en 60-talsklänning som dansar runt i vinden. Jag älskar det. Njut här nedan av duons turnédagbok.
Town by town, village by village, soul by soul our brand new film From the Midnight Sun to Eternity (directed, scripted and edited by Paola Suhonen) has been conquering Finnish people around the nation during the last months. Audiences counted now in thousands have welcomed us at old club houses, people’s houses, indie theaters, abandoned school buildings and village houses with the most beautiful way. The tour will consist of 60 film exhibitions around Finland during 2025-2026. The distribution concept is unique in the history of Finnish cinema. And it is completely independently produced!
Our mission has been to bring back the people together, into face to face encounters and culture instead of polarizing social media talk. Regardless of their background people are able to see arthouse cinema in the places where you don’t see it anymore in Finland. We feel like missionaries, old bluesmen who convert people in rural villages all around the nation, although instead of Americana, the stage is now the Finnish countryside.
Highway is our home and the film wagon rolls on!
From the Midnight Sun to Eternity does not woo the audience with the means of current mainstream cinema. Instead, we show 149 minutes of a lingering, slow-paced story about love, betrayal, the inexorable passage of time shot on 16mm film, with our backs straight to the preview, without caring about the audience's reactions - that have been remarkably positive. And strategically, it seems to work much better than the ready-made social media campaign format, which we have already left behind years ago. People seem to embrace the idea of not being underestimated by the content creator/author and are hungry for something else than 5 seconds of TikTok feed.
In many places, far from large settlements, our film has also returned film screenings to local village halls after a decades-long hiatus. During our tour, many local residents of the older generation have told how in their youth they had met their peers during visiting film screenings in the same hall. To be part of the story and able to reconnect people with their dearest places of memories both on the screen and off the screen is the thing that is bigger than us and something to be grateful for.
See you on the road!
/ Paola and Olli
October 9, 2025
Lyssna på singeln Summer of Sorrow här nedan!
