The Last Misfits by The Golden River
Juho-Pekka Tanskanen / Finland / 2025 / World Premiere / 79 min
A picturesque documentary western from the cold north, where the last gold miners search for happiness and riches in the Finnish wilderness.
Magnificent landscapes under a low-hanging sun. Furrowed faces and rough hands at work under and above the dusty surface of the earth. The broad, painterly images are reminiscent of American filmmakers like Terrence Malick, but this is northern Finland – and neither the humor nor the deep existential gravity will let you forget that.
More than a hundred years after the dust has settled on the Wild West, the gold rush is still simmering in the wilds of Lapland. Here, a small community of gold miners live outside of modern society. A proud and traditional way of life with 150-year-old roots that is now threatened by the only permanent thing that exists: change.
Times are changing and new laws are on the way. For 80-year-old Rami, it is a disaster. For the youngest member of the community, Nils-Emil, it opens up a future outside the gold mine. Juho-Pekka Tanskanen has created something very rare: an epic drama about small destinies in an old world.