Competitionfilms a-z

Giant

D, ED: Salla Tykkä, CI: Samuli Saastamoinen
FIN 2014, OwE, 13‘

 

Outside the gym they look small and fragile, but as soon as the girls of the Romanian sports boarding schools start their exercises they become high-performance machines. These are the future gymnastic “giants”, making the impossible possible and seemingly able to ignore the laws of gravity. Even as a young girl, filmmaker Salla Tykkä was fascinated by Romanian gymnasts. The uncompromising system behind the success of competitive athletes in the socialist states was something she did not then understand. Many years later she visits the famous boarding schools in Onesti and Deva. The takes in the poetry of these locations
and captures them for the screen.

Salla Tykkä (born 1973) is a visual artist who has been working with film and video since 1996. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2003 and participated in the Venice Biennale 2001. Her films have been shown at international film festivals in Rotterdam, Brest, New York and Oberhausen.

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