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Posts Tagged ‘Lauri Porra’

Under-the-Radar Round Up 2025, Part 2

May 13, 2025 Leave a comment

Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton

I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.

This article, the second of 2025, covers another six scores released in the first quarter of the year from a wide array of genres and countries, including a quirky Italian comedy-drama, a Spanish documentary feature about a contemporary Christian music group, an Italian WWII drama, a French animated film about Frida Kahlo, a Finnish crime drama TV series, and a Swedish animated film about a super-hero baby! Read more…

STORMSKERRY MAJA – Lauri Porra

February 16, 2024 2 comments

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Stormskerry Maja is a new Finnish drama film directed by Tiina Lymi based on the acclaimed and famous ‘Stormskärs-Maja’ novels written by Anni Blomqvist in the 1960s and early 1970s. The film is set in the 19th century on the remote Åland Islands between Sweden and Finland and stars Amanda Jansson as the titular protagonist Maja. At the age of seventeen she is placed into an arranged marriage with a local fisherman, Janne, and immediately has to adapt to her new life as a fisherman’s wife, coping with her husband’s long absences at sea and taking care of her family alone. However, over time, Maja steadily grows into a strong-willed and independent woman who faces whatever life throws at her with strength and determination; the film follows the various hardships of her life, her triumphs and her tragedies, all against the atmospheric backdrop of this barren cluster of rocky islands in the Baltic Sea. Read more…