Anna (1970 film)

Anna
Directed byJörn Donner
Written byJörn Donner
Eija-Elina Bergholm
Starring
Release date
  • 23 October 1970 (1970-10-23)
Running time
82 minutes
CountryFinland
LanguagesFinnish, Swedish

Anna is a 1970 Finnish movie co-written by Jörn Donner and Eija-Elina Bergholm,[1] and directed by Donner, featuring Harriet Andersson, Pertti Melasniemi and Marja Packalén. It was filmed in Kustavi and Turku, Finland. There was controversy about the nudity in the film.[2] It has been described as "perhaps [Donner's] most thoughtful film",[3] and been listed among "the most important films made in Finland in the 1960s and 1970s".[4]

Both Finnish-language and Swedish-language versions were made of the film. In the Finnish version, Andersson's lines are voiced by Liisamaija Laaksonen.[5]

Plot

Thirty-eight-year-old Anna Kivi (Harriet Andersson), a Finnish anesthesiologist at Turku University Hospital and divorcée recently awarded a doctorate after her thesis, retreats to a summer studio on an island for the annual national summer holiday where she contemplates modern hardships and Northern European socialism.[6]

References

  1. ^ Women Screenwriters: An International Guide, edited by Jill Nelmes and Jule Selbo (2015), s.v. "Bergholm".
  2. ^ The Women's Companion to International Film, edited by Annette Kuhn and Susannah Radstone (1994), p. 40.
  3. ^ Peter Cowie (28 February 2020). "A Half-Century of Friendship with Finnish Renaissance Man Jörn Donner". criterion.com.
  4. ^ Jim Hillier, Cinema in Finland: An Introduction (British Film Institute, 1975), p. 48.
  5. ^ "Anna (12)". Yle Teema (in Finnish). 27 February 2013. Retrieved 6 October 2025.
  6. ^ "Anna (1970) - IMDb".