MQFF Midsumma Movies: Light Light Light

MQFF brings you a sizzling weekend of the newest and most fabulous queer cinema

It’s the spring of 1986, and the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been casting an existential pall over a small Finnish village. But there’s a ray of light: a friendship born of emotional blackmail enlivens village life for 15-year-old Mariia (Rebekka Baer), after she falsely reports the new girl at school, Mimi (Anni Iikkanen) as an addict after finding drug paraphernalia in the woods. Mimi demands Mariia masquerade as her friend, and their relationship, begun so antagonistically, comes to assume romantic dimensions… Memories of those heady times come flooding back as, 20 years later, Mariia (now played by Laura Birn) returns home to take care of her ailing mother.

This gorgeous, only semi-sentimental, coming-of-age festival hit is based on the 2011 novel Valoa Valoa Valoa by Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen, and boasts gorgeous cinematography and an evocative, dreamy, ‘80s-flavoured, Euro-pop soundtrack from Joel Melasniemi.

• Director: Inari Niemi
• Country: Finland (2023)
• Rating: Unclassified 15+
• Runtime: 91 minutes