Finnish-Palestinian filmmaker’s short on Gaza war and Finnish military service screens at Sodankylä

Yasmin Najjar’s short film Tj28, selected for Cannes’ La Cinef student series, will have its Finnish premiere at the Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä, reports Yle.

The 24-year-old director’s work draws on her own military service in Upinniemi in 2021, where she served in medical troops. The film follows Amani, a 19-year-old Finnish-Palestinian woman in voluntary military service, as she grapples with the contrast between simulated combat in Finland and the real war her family endures in Gaza.

Najjar, whose Palestinian grandfather emigrated to Finland in the late 1960s, said the army deliberately distanced recruits from the reality of killing. “It’s too big a thing to think that I might end up in a situation with real fear of death and killing,” she told Yle.

She also stars in the film after an extensive casting process failed to find a suitable lead. A Palestinian cousin, she said, was moved to tears by the film’s portrayal of their family’s experience when their grandfather was trapped in Gaza in October 2023.

Najjar, now a film student at Aalto University, hopes Finland will embrace more politically engaged cinema. “I hope we’re ready for more political films, not just glorifying history,” she said.