http://imdb.com/title/tt0453413/
Synopsis:
Pix:This interesting film is based on a true story and the diaries of Aleksanteri Ahola-Valo, the title character. It is set in a place and period I know very little about, Finland when it was part of the Russian Empire prior to World War I.
Valo, roughly 8, and his father are sent to a remote village as a form of internal exile, following a massacre of some demonstrators against the Tsar. Valo immediately meets Ville, a boy his own age who makes his living moving luggage at the train station and picking pockets. He is the son of the local constable, a very abusive drunk.
Soon Valo starts going to school. There is a new teacher this year, and she soon gets up the noses of powerful locals by reading her charges "David Copperfield" (in Finnish). It isn't long before the school is branded as subversive and shut down for good.
By now, Valo has seen considerable disregard for children, not to mention downright brutality and some fairly widespread physical abuse. The closing of the school is the last straw for him---he decides to set up an underground "playschool" run by himself. Attracted by the notion of learning to read (among other things), many children join him, including some who couldn't attend the former school, such as Ville.
Further repression follows.
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'Official Site': (Lotsa pix there... )
http://www.valofilm.fi/
Looks like fun!
kev.