
Acting
Sep 29, 1982
Helsinki, Finland
Pihla Viitala
Acting
Biography
She studied acting at the Helsinki Theatre Academy and began her career in the late 2000s with feature films such as Ganes (2007) and Tears of April (Käsky, 2008). In 2010, she was named one of Europe's Shooting Stars at the Berlin International Film Festival. She subsequently developed an international career, notably appearing in the American fantasy action film Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) and the Italian comedy-drama Latin Lover (2015). On television, she achieved widespread international recognition for her leading role as Detective Sofia Karppi in the crime drama series Deadwind (Karppi, 2018–2021), a performance that earned her the Kultainen Venla Award for Best Actress. She has also featured in the drama series Arctic Circle (Ivalo) and Cold Courage (2020). In cinema, she portrayed the title role in the historical drama Maria's Paradise (Marian paratiisi, 2019).
Feature Films (26)

An epic tale about a group of whale watchers, whose ship breaks down and they get picked up by a whale fisher vessel. The Fishbillies on the vessel has just gone bust, and everything goes out of control.
Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre

In the mid-1960s, three small-time Finnish bootleggers seize control of their Helsinki neighborhood's black-market liquor business.
Hellsinki

After getting a taste for blood as children, Hansel and Gretel have become the ultimate vigilantes, hell-bent on retribution. Now, unbeknownst to them, Hansel and Gretel have become the hunted, and must face an evil far greater than witches... their past.
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Friends meet after years apart and go on a road trip, to escape from their everyday lives. The trip takes some unexpected turns along the way, but will they find answers to the questions that are troubling them?
Elma ja Liisa

The director Lauri Nurkse tells that Veijarit is a film about "arjensietokyvyttömyys" (= inability to tolerate everyday life) and about the Peter Pan complex. The main actor Mikko Leppilampi says it's about "kolkyttoistavuotiaat" (= thirtyeenagers = people of thirty behaving like teenagers). An immediate reference point is the commedia all'italiana of the 1950s and the 1960s, the black comedy often exposing the infantile stage of development of the Italian male. Saku and Ässä are anti-heroes, but we never fail to sense the humanity behind their shallow and crazy ways. Veijarit is a satire and a parody of a superficial way of life, but there is a vitality in the protagonists that we feel can lead them to a more meaningful stage of existence after the prolonged youth full of sound and fury. There is a motif of transcendence in the imagery of flying: will the balloons carry me or will they burst.
Hustlers

The story of an overly protective and controlling father who suspects incest is taking place between his own son and daughter. These growing suspicions and concerns cause the father to become delusional and unrelenting in his quest to end the love affair between his children.
Bad Family

Two friends make a fresh start isolated in an abandoned place of Crete. The arrival of a German woman, awakens the erotic passion, and brings intense emotions.A friendship is tested, three lifes are mixed, in an erotic web under the Red Sky.
Red Sky

There is civil war in Finland between "Whites" and "Reds". A woman soldier of the Reds is captured by the Whites. She is ordered to be executed. A lieutenant is enforced into a homosexual relationship with his commanding officer to save the Red female with whom he is infatuated.
Tears of April

Summer begins, Aku graduates high school and faces a great emptiness. As his girlfriend, parents and friends all leave the city, it looks to be the dullest summer ever. Everything changes at Midsummer when Aku meets Juli, a beautiful, strange and wild girl. Juli asks Aku for a ride to eastern Finland. Aku agrees – without any idea what he's getting himself into.
August

A Finnish-Norwegian love story with an unexpected shape and development. Shot in Oslo, Helsinki, Istanbul and Berlin. The film focuses on showing the actual moments that lead to getting to know one another, building a relationship and to breaking up. The film takes part in Kaisa’s attempt of getting involved with two different men that look almost exactly the same, questioning where the thin line is between someone potentially being the love of your life or not. Shooting the film with the approach of a workshop and closely involving the actors allows the film to take shape as a unique, unpredictable cinematic expression touching the basis and complexity of human behavior.
Must Have Been Love

25-year-old Iiris and Karoliina have been best friends since childhood. Karoliina has been travelling and living abroad for some years now, but is coming back home for the summer as Karoliina has gotten them a job as waitresses in Hanko, the best summer city in Finland!
Summertime

Dramatic comedy about having fun, throwing yourself into life without inhibition, overcoming the feeling of shame and accepting that few things in life go as planned.
Off Key
Television & Series (11)

Black Widows is a series about 3 ordinary women, friendship and an impossible secret.
Black Widows

When Sofia Karppi, a detective in her 30's who is trying to get over her husband's death, discovers the body of a young woman on a construction site, she triggers a chain of events that threatens to destroy her life again.
Deadwind

During a routine search of an old cabin in the remote and wintery back country, Finnish policewoman, Nina Kautsalo, discovers two dead prostitutes, with a third still fighting for her life. The ensuing investigation takes a surprise twist when an extremely rare and deadly virus is discovered in the surviving woman’s bloodwork. When the Finnish Bureau of Investigation takes over the case, German virologist, Thomas Lorenz is called in to assist in identifying and containing the virus. Set within the endless white expanse of the arctic circle, Nina and Thomas must rely on each other to have any hope of saving the ones they love. But what takes precedence? A deadly virus or an active serial killer?
Arctic Circle

"Hellfjord" is the story of the urban police officer Salmander - second generation Pakistani immigrant - who, after somewhat accidentally killing his police horse in front of thousands of children, gets relocated to the location farthest north in Norway: Hellfjord. Hellfjord is archetypical small Norwegian hick village, populated by simple-minded people keenly interested in keeping to themselves. But when Salmander scratches the surface, he discovers a secret that will turn Hellfjord upside down. Maybe even inside out.







