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Rare Exports

Rare Exports

The Santa at the center of "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale" is not the sort Mommy is likely to be kissing beneath the mistletoe (or anywhere else) this year. Rather, the focus of this bizarre Finnish fairy tale — as black as anything the Brothers Grimm could have dreamed up — is a sinister old codger who chews off ears and whose demon minion kidnaps innocent children. Ho ho no!

Drawing on ancient Scandinavian mythology, Jalmari Helander's feature debut (spun off from two of his short films) is a thing of frigid beauty and twisted playfulness. The time is just before Christmas, and the setting is northern Finland, where an American drilling operation has unearthed a mysterious block of ice sprouting a gigantic pair of horns.

Soon children from a nearby village begin to disappear, and a group of reindeer hunters finds its annual crop slaughtered in the snow. Only little Pietari (Onni Tommila) knows who's responsible; now he must persuade his gruff father (Jorma Tommila, Onni's father) to help him fight back.

Cocooned in a genuinely goose-pimply atmosphere and awash in marveling music, this Edward Gorey-meets-Joe Dante fable turns Santa (Peeter Jakobi) into a savage troll and his elves into naked, wrinkly graybeards. Kids will love the diminutive, motherless hero and a plot that's completely bonkers; adults will enjoy the exuberantly pagan images and deadpan humor. Tots, on the other hand, will probably never sit on Santa's lap again.

— Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

Rare Exports

Tue December 5, 7:30 PM, Muenzinger Auditorium

Finland, France, Norway, Sweden; 2010; in English, Finnish; 83 min, 35mm • official site

Director: Jalmari Helander, Writer: Jalmari Helander, Original Story: Jalmari Helander, Juuso Helander, Cast: Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila, Tommi Korpela, Rauno Juvonen, Per Christian Ellefsen

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Tickets

10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission. $7 w/UCB student ID, $7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.

Parking

Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.

RTD Bus

Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus

International Film Series

(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.

First Person Cinema

(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.

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(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil Grillo.

Celebrating Stan

Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.

C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.

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Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

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Index of visiting artists

Tue Dec 5, 2023

Rare Exports

At Muenzinger Auditorium

Thu Dec 7, 2023

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