In one of our first interviews from the incredibly successful Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival we got to speak to director Virpi Suutari about her beautiful film Once Upon a Time in a Forest.

The film follows young Finnish activists Ida and Minka champion the preservation of their country’s expansive forests, challenging the timber industry’s giants and bridging generational divides within their own families. Their journey from protest to negotiation illustrates not only the clash between economic interests and environmental conservation but also the cultural shift needed to embrace biodiversity as crucial for the planet’s future. Filmmaker Virpi Suutari weaves a politically urgent narrative with humanity and humour, offering a profound tribute to nature and a hopeful look at the activism shaping our world.

Before diving in here are some essentials facts the director brought to our attention about her project.

Virpi explains that Finland is covered by more than 20 millions hectares of productive forests, that roughly equates to 75% of the land area in Finland being forests. So with this in mind the question should be what the forests are really for? Are they a to provide a natural nurturing life or be a source of raw material for the forest industry?

Once Upon a Time in a Forest explores and shares how Finnish forests are suffering by a big problem – overlogging. One of the biggest culprits is the excessive extraction of timber for pulp and paper products that leads to the fragmentation, degradation and loss of biodiversity. Logging in the boreal ecozone in Finland and Sweden – Europe’s most forested countries – threatens its rich biodiversity and carbon services.

Only 7 % of forest land in Finland is under strict and permanent protection according to the Natural Resources Institute Finland. This means that 93% of the productive forests are currently in industrial use. The largest protected areas are in northern Finland but in southern Finland only 3% of the forests are protected.

Nordic Watchlist: What inspired you to create a documentary about the intersection of biodiversity, generational differences, and activism in the context of Finnish forests?

Virpi Suutari: My mother died two years ago and I inherited a small forest and I am now one of the 600 000 private forest owners in Finland.

With my sister, we started to think about what we could do with it and around the same time, I discovered there is this whole new movement rising, all these young people fighting to protect the forests.  Since then, this movement called The Forest Movement, has only grown, but I was there almost at the very beginning which enabled me to get to access and follow the collective.

As a filmmaker I became conscious of the acute political subject of the film but above all I was enchanted by the charismatic young characters I found, especially Ida and Minka (Pictured below left to right). Both of them were so radiant in their own beautiful way.

NW: When did you discover the young activists featured in the film, and what drew you to their story?

VS: At first, I learned about the history of the environmental movement in Finland and interviewed some old “veterans” of the movement. One of them said to me:  You have to find today´s young radicals to your film”.

So, I reached out for Extinction Rebellion the beginning of 2022, and met some of them in their local office, and found these beautiful people like Minka, who later became one of the main characters. She told me later that she had been asked to participate three different documentaries “but I chose you”, she said.

I soon realised that I held in my hands a valuable generational film about the changing attitudes towards our forests. This generation is confronted by the Finnish forest industry and a deeply ingrained national ideology of forests as the foundation of Finland´s economic prosperity.

With these characters I wanted to make a film that would shake up old ways of thinking about our relationship with forests and their management. A film that would be both intimate and socially relevant, and above all, cinematically executed; a story about the significance of forests, activism, and environmental consciousness.

Through the film, viewers accompany charismatic protagonists on nature surveys, discussions with representatives of forest companies, secret strategy meetings, and exhilarating actions, but also into more personal aspects of life; for one, a quiet friend is the forest, for another, a grandmother who comforts, saying that a grandchild shouldn’t carry all the world’s sorrows on their shoulders.

Finnish prosperity has largely relied on the forest industry, but now its practices are being questioned, and ordinary citizens have begun to rethink old assumptions about our forest management. There is a kind of race going on with the industry about which forests will be defined as natural forests in the future.

The main character of the film, Ida, has a grandfather who is a former farmer and forest worker from eastern Finland. He represents in the film the notion of good forest management that has been ingrained in us since the wars. Through Ida and her grandfather, the film delicately and respectfully portrays the changing attitudes of eras and generations.

NW: The visuals in this film are so incredibly beautiful – were there an inspirations you had in terms of how the film looked?

VS: First of all, there was the decision to use 4:3 as for the main aspect ratio. This was originally inspired by the archive footage that we wanted to use. We ended up using the archives much less than I anticipated but we stuck with 4:3 because it makes a very intimate feeling with the young protagonists and is a kind and tender nod to the past – this aspect ratio has a certain nostalgic vibe and ties today´s activism to the history of the environmental movement.

We also use cinemascope in the beginning, in the middle and in the end of the film in moments, when we really wanted to dive into the nature and create moments of freedom.

My DOP was Teemu Liakka who is a very well experienced to work in the nature and demanding conditions. He has shot some incredible nature films and done also more polished nature cinematography than we wanted for this one. We decided very early that the nature must look more familiar, more cozy in this film than in typical nature documentaries. For example, we did not want to include any wild animals that humans wouldn´t normally see and meet in the nature. We filmed instead frogs and Siberian jays and small fish in the lakes.

The biggest challenge was not to disturb our characters and other creatures while filming but fortunately Teemu is used to work silently and efficiently by himself.

One key thing decision was to make the film both political and poetic and in order to lure the viewer to listen the activists we needed this immersive experience of nature – the wonders and forest love that the protagonists experienced.

NW: How do you see the role of young activists in shaping environmental policy and conservation efforts, both in Finland and globally?

VS: It is essential that the activists point out the problems that the companies or politicians want to hide or avoid.

Activists are independent actors, they don´t “own” to anyone; they don´t have any ties to businesses etc. that is why they can act from their own moral angle/point of view – they have a free voice, outside the business and the parliament.

For example, The Finnish forestry companies UPM in Uruguay and STORA ENSO in Brazil have caused environmental and social problems in the global south but most people would not know about Finland´s connection to these problems without the activists.

NW: What lessons or insights do you hope viewers will take away from watching the film?

VS: In many ways, we are living in a time of great change regarding our relationship with nature, and the so called ordinary people have an acute interest and desire for gaining an understanding on how our forests, soil, wetlands and water systems are currently being used. To feed this curiosity, we need both information and emotional input. Currently, many regular people feel it’s important to think of the trees, mushrooms, mycelia, and the willow tits that are on the verge of extinction. All the things that ultimately create the conditions for life on this planet we all share.

The movie deals with a burning issue, but as a filmmaker, the person I look at through the lens of the camera and the movie itself as a beloved medium of expression are equally important to me. It has been a great fortune to find young people who shine brightly in the movie and who have allowed me and the team close to them. Each of them is charismatic in their own way: one will become the driving force of the Forest Movement during the year, while another is just learning about forest ecology and dares to ask fundamental moral questions at the tables of big bosses in the forest industry.

The grieving process of today’s youth, a kind of preparation for letting go, has been a poignant experience for myself and the entire team. Likewise, how despite everything, they still want to act together for the sake of Finland’s forests; passive bystanderism is not an option for them.

Hopefully, the film will become a compelling testimony to the love for forests, but also a portrayal of the warmth and compassion that the whole team has felt towards its young protagonists

Nordic Watchlist were covering CPH:DOX Festival – a Documentary Film Festival based in Copenhagen. Look out for future interviews and features covering the festival.