Directing
Jan 30, 1929
Äänekoski, Finland
Mikko Niskanen
Directing
Biography
Mikko Niskanen was a Finnish film director and actor. He was born in Äänekoski, Central Finland in 1929. He was the third of six children, and his father worked as a timber barge pilot. His mother too had a job outside the home, so the children often spent summers with their grandmother in Viitasaari. At the age of 13, Mikko Niskanen started working in timber felling and floating. Two years later he enrolled in a vocational school in Jyväskylä to become a car mechanic. He took a serious interest in amateur theatre and was accepted to study at the Finnish Theatre Academy in Helsinki from 1947 until 1950. He then acted in Jyväskylä and Kuopio theatres until 1954 when he landed an actor's job at the film studios of Suomen Filmiteollisuus in Helsinki. One of his first film roles was in Edvin Laine's The Unknown Soldier (1955). Between 1958 and 1961 Niskanen studied at the Moscow Film School in the Soviet Union. Niskanen's 1962 film The Boys was entered into the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival. He continued his directing career focusing on themes such as rural life and youth. His second breakthrough was Under Your Skin (Käpy selän alla, 1966), a story of two young couples spending a weekend camping in the countryside. The film received six Jussi Awards and was followed by another story about young lovers, Asfalttilampaat (1968). Niskanen's tour de force as both actor and director was the five-hour television drama Eight Deadly Shots which was also released as a 145-minute theatrical version edited by Jörn Donner. Based on a true story from late 1960s Finland, it is a naturalistic drama about a poor farmer struggling to make a living for his family. He gradually becomes a violent alcoholic who goes on killing spree when the police arrive to calm him down. Besides directing, Niskanen gave a powerful and intense performance in the leading role. The film, like many of Niskanen's works were shot on locations around his home province north of Jyväskylä. Mikko Niskanen died of cancer at the age of 61.
Feature Films (30)
Poor orphan coffee delivery girl loves a poor painter who can't sell his artworks. Painter likes delivery girl, but has stuck in a friend zone. Delivery girl tries to help the painter to get forward in his career, but meanwhile a rich woman becomes too interested towards the painter.
Tähtisilmä
Täällä Pohjantähden alla is based on the book with the same title. It is a story of the little village. The movie starts in the 1890's and it ends to the Finnish civil war in 1918. Story concentrates around a tenant farmer family, although it gives us a good look at the society at whole. While the class struggle depends, people of the village are driven to bloody civil war.
Here, Beneath the North Star
Olavi Koskela, a ladies' man, joins the loggers. As a log driver, Olavi travels from place to place, seducing one girl after another and then abandoning them. Only Kyllikki, the daughter of a wealthy family, is able to resist his advances and incites him to challenge another log driver to a race down the rapids. Through Kyllikki, Olavi is forced to face the consequences of his actions and reflect on the meaninglessness of his life.
Laulu tulipunaisesta kukasta
In the early 1800s, Finnish governor's daughter first detests but soon falls in love with Russian Czar Alexander I who has just taken Finland over from Sweden's rule.
Tanssi yli hautojen
Kaarina, an orphan girl raised by Taneli, the innkeeper, notices that her friendship with her childhood friend Antti is turning into romance. Henrik, the patron, also has his eye on Kaarina.
Kaunis Kaarina
Television & Series (4)
Small-farmer Pasi shoots four policemen who have come to arrest him for raged drunkenness. The movie is a flashback examining the events that finally lead to the tragic shooting. As time goes by, Pasi sinks deeper into poverty, gets into trouble with police and tax officials, all while family arguments grow more and more serious. Based on a real story.
Eight Deadly Shots
Rauta-aika (The Age of Iron) is a dramatic four-part miniseries completed in 1982 by Finnish broadcast network Yle TV2. The production attempts to adapt the national epic of Finland, the Kalevala, for the television audience by way of humanizing the mythological characters whose thoughts and actions drive the narrative. The protagonists of Rauta-aika, Väinö, Ilmari and Lemminki, have been inspired by the tales in the Kalevala and go in search of a woman, eventually finding themselves at war with the Nordic people, and in the end pay dearly for their pursuits.
