Documentary film about the lost islands at the Vellamo Marine Centre
28.2.2025 | The documentary film Back – Longing for the Lost Islands will be screened at the Vellamo Marine Centre auditorium on Saturday 8.3. at 12 noon. The documentary is part of the exhibition Lost Islands – Photographs and Videos of the Outer Islands of the Gulf of Finland. The exhibition and the film are produced by the team Juha Metso – Marjo Näkki – Mika Rokka. The film is open to all and lasts 55 minutes.
Tickets can be purchased in advance from the Vellamo Marine Centre’s online shop. The ticket price is €10. If there are still seats available, tickets will also be sold at the Vellamo ticket office on the day of the event before the screening.
Stories and memories
In the eastern Gulf of Finland are four old Finnish islands that Finland was forced to cede to the Soviet Union as part of the Winter War peace treaty. Tytärsaari, Lavansaari, Seiskari and especially Suursaari have taken on a topical significance as Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has also increased tensions in the Baltic Sea.
Photographer-director Juha Metso visited Suursaari seven times and the other outer islands once between 1999 and 2019, while documentary filmmaker Mika Rokka visited Suursaari in the summer of 2007. Their photos have captured what remains of the islands for posterity to see. Screenwriter Marjo Näkki has worked as a journalist in the Baltic Sea region.
The film features islanders and their descendants. The illustrations are based on unique material from Metso and Rokka, and the collages include old archive photos from the Kymenlaakso Museum. The result is a unique and dramatic documentary film about islands and, above all, about longing. Stories and memories tie people to their roots.
“How can you miss a place you’ve never been?”
This documentary tells the stories of the islands and their culture, of life in the middle of the Baltic Sea. At the same time, the documentary depicts the longing that descendants of islanders in the descending generation may feel.
Titta Tommila is a 26-year-old woman. She says she is from the Greater Åland Islands, although she was born and has lived in Kotka all her life. Tita’s paternal roots are in Suursaari, which is on the horizon, but where she is not allowed to go.
Titta feels a strong longing for the island, even though she has never been there. It is a transgenerational experience, an identity that lives as an intangible, yet powerful experience of herself and her background.
The same rootlessness and broken thread is being inflicted every day, for example in Ukraine. The only difference is that the Ukrainians who fled can still reach their homelands, but Tita does not have the same opportunity.
Or does he? Art produced with modern technology and digital solutions can enable Tita to reach the lost Great Island. The documentary follows Tita’s journey both to herself, to her roots and to the virtual reality that can bring to life what has been lost forever.
Above it all, a sea eagle is connected, symbolising continuity, freedom and the fact that in the end, nature wins.