Arto Tapio Halonen (born 11 January 1964 in Joensuu)Ohjaaja Arto Halonen tekee rohkeita dokumentteja arkaluonteisista aiheista. Kotiliesi 7/2009. is a Finnish film director, screenwriter and producer who has directed documentary and fiction films, animations, and theatre. His best-known documentary films include Karmapa – Two Ways of Divinity (1998), Shadow of the Holy Book (2007), When Heroes Lie (2012) and White Rage (2015).
Halonen's best-known fiction films include Princess (2010), The Guardian Angel (2018) and After Us, the Flood (2024). Princess was a commercial success and attracted over 300,000 cinema viewers in Finland. The distribution rights to The Guardian Angel have been sold to 70 countries. After Us, the Flood has toured international festivals, winning several awards. Halonen's films deal with social themes, religions, manipulation and the world of sports.
Halonen is the founder of the DocPoint festival. He served as its festival director in 2001–2003 and as artistic director in 2001–2004. In 2002, he founded DOKKINO, a film event for children and young people, in connection with DocPoint. DOKKINO received the State Prize for Children's Culture in 2016, and DocPoint received the State Prize for Cinematic Art in 2024.
Halonen was awarded the Finland Prize in 2005 for a significant artistic career. In addition, he has received the City of Helsinki Culture Award (2010), the nationwide mental health award of the Finnish Association for Mental Health (2010), and the national civic action recognition award of the Central Association for Social Welfare and Health Security (2010). Halonen founded the production company Art Films Production AFP Oy in 1997.
Career
Early career: the 1980s Halonen's first film was created during an art and environmental education course at the Joensuu Commercial College. Over the next two years, he made twelve 8 mm home movies using equipment borrowed from the Joensuu Film Club. His first two fictional short films were made with fellow student Keijo Kakkonen in the spring of 1983. Between 1983 and 1985, Halonen made one short fiction film with Jukka Hartikainen and three with Risto Rantakosken. In addition, Halonen directed five short fiction films and one short documentary. Some of these short films were awarded at amateur festivals in Finland and abroad.
In 1984, Halonen represented Finland at the UNICA festival in East Germany with his short fiction film Taivaanrannan taa, which dealt with the musician Pekka Streng. Halonen later returned to Pekka Streng's story in his documentary Magneettimies (2009).
In 1985, Halonen, Risto Rantakoski and Mikko Pietiäinen were filming a documentary about the homeless man Veli Härkönen. Härkönen's death in a fire during filming attracted local and national attention. In connection with the case, Halonen publicly criticized the social authorities of the City of Joensuu, and this has been seen as his first social intervention through film.
In 1986, Halonen began his professional projects with the three-part fictional film series Sodan kasvot. The first part of the series, Ensi jouluna, was completed in 1986, but the series remained unfinished. In 1987, Halonen founded a sole proprietorship, and the drawn animation Kahdet kasvot was also completed with Timo Kokkonen. The film was shown on MTV3. In the same year, Halonen made the clay animation Arina (1987) in collaboration with sculptor Teppo Laurinolli.
In 1988, Halonen's first feature-length documentary, Aaro Iivari Aukusti, maanviljelijän poika, was completed. The 50-minute film tells of the actions of Joensuu city manager Aaro Heikkilä under the pressure of dismissal threats and criminal charges.
From 1986 to 1989, Halonen taught film at the Joensuu School of Visual Arts for Children and Young People, where his students included actor Timo Lavikainen. In 1989, Halonen was appointed regional artist for film and video art in North Karelia.
The 1990s Halonen served as regional artist in North Karelia from 1989 to 1993, during which time he led an extensive film education experiment. In the project, teachers were trained under the guidance of media professionals, and those teachers then applied the training in their own classrooms. Material from the experiment was collected for the Finnish National Board of Education for the development of media education in schools. Halonen also organized a screenwriting competition, whose eight winners were able to participate in professional training. Two short films were also produced on the basis of the competition. During his regional artist period, Halonen also co-directed with film director Markku Pölönen the educational film Valoa – Erään videoelokuvan anatomia.
In 1990, Halonen and Teppo Laurinolli's second clay animation Turisti was completed and selected for the domestic competition of the Tampere Short Film Festival. Halonen made the observational documentary Pitkä matka (1989) about the making of Turisti. Finland's national public broadcaster Yle showed both films.
In 1990, Halonen created the shadow animation series Lammenneidin tarina for Yle's children's and youth department in collaboration with the children's theatre group Vunukka. He next directed the sports documentary Valo varjon takaa (1990) about hurdler Arto Bryggare's comeback attempt, and the dramatized documentary Ringside (1992) about boxer Tarmo Uusivirta. Jarmo Jääskeläinen, founder of Yle TV2's Dokumenttiprojekti, bought Ringside for the programme. This began a collaboration of more than 20 years between Halonen, Jääskeläinen and his successor Ilkka Vehkalahti. Ringside won the EBU's Golden Shot award for best sports film, the State Film Art Commission quality support award, and the North Karelia Arts Commission's Ensiesitys award.
In 1993, the feature comedy film Onnellinen hääpäivä (The Happy Wedding Day), produced by Yle TV2 Drama and written and directed by Halonen, was completed. With 830,000 viewers it was Yle's third most watched film of the year. The following year saw the release of the short documentary Veren perintö, which dealt with Russian journalist Vjatheslav Oparin's connection to yetis. Veren perintö was selected for the domestic competition series of the Tampere Film Festival.
In 1995, the 65-minute TV drama Koti, written by Melina Voipio, was completed; Halonen directed and adapted it for TV2 Drama. A shortened version of the film was also selected for the domestic competition at the Tampere Film Festival.
Among Halonen's best-known works is Karmapa – Two Ways of Divinity (1998), which deals with the selection conflict between the Karmapa lamas and China's aggressive Tibet policy. The film received the EU's humanitarian ECHO award and caused a political dispute when China attempted to prevent its screening at the Hong Kong Film Festival. In 2008, the case led to Halonen, who had been on the Finnish Olympic Committee's invitation list, being denied a visa to the Beijing Olympics, which sparked widespread attention and criticism over the silence of Finland's state leadership. A film about the difficult and ethically challenging making of the documentary, Karmapa – Matka maailman katolla (1998), received honorable mention from the jury at the Kettupäivät festival.
Also completed in 1998 was the documentary Unelmoija ja unikansa, which deals with the dream culture of the Malaysian Temiar Senoi tribe and its influence on Western dream research. The film premiered in June 1998 as part of the 15th annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) in Oahu, Hawaii.
The 2000s In 2000, Halonen directed and wrote the documentary Taivasta vasten (The Stars' Caravan) produced in Kyrgyzstan by Millenium Film. Taivasta vasten is based on an original idea by Richard Manini and Carlo Cresto-Dina, and deals with the use of film as propaganda and its role as a messenger between cultures. The work premiered in the main competition of the IDFA festival in Amsterdam, and in Finland it received the State Film Art Commission quality support award. The film's music was composed by Edward Vesala and Iro Haarla. Vesala died before the film was completed, and it remained his last composition work. Taivasta vasten is dedicated to Vesala's memory. Film critic Dennis Grunes selected the film among the 100 best Eastern European filmmakers or films made in Eastern Europe.
Halonen served on the board of Dokumenttikilta from 2000 to 2003 and as its chair from 2001 to 2002. He was a key figure in the internationalization of Finnish documentary film. Through Dokumenttikilta, Halonen produced the Naapureiden silmin and Uptown-Downtown festivals in Helsinki in 2000 and 2001, as well as the Northern Exposure Finnish film event in New York in 2002. Halonen also served as artistic director of the events.
In 2001, Halonen founded the Helsinki documentary film festival DocPoint, and in 2002 DOKKINO for children and young people in connection with it. The first DocPoint in 2002 was a success. By its third year, DocPoint had grown into the largest documentary film festival in the Nordic countries and had risen into the world's top ten in terms of audience size. Halonen said the aim had been, in addition to strengthening domestic film culture, to offer “moments of pause” and deep understanding amid a flood of lightweight media.
Halonen continued on DocPoint's board until 2013. According to film historian Peter von Bagh, “one of the milestones in the rise of Finnish documentary film is DocPoint, Arto Halonen's obsession, from which a festival has grown that has significantly increased the visibility and ‘media-compatibility’ of documentary film.”
In 2011, Halonen curated the NYC – Finnish Documentary Film Event in New York together with DocPoint artistic director Erja Dammert. The event screened 47 Finnish documentaries, including at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
From 2004 to 2007, Halonen made one feature-length and three short documentaries set in Cuba. The short film Tynnyrimies (2004) won awards at several festivals. The feature documentary Kuuban valloittajat (2005) premiered in the international competition of the Visions du Réel festival and had theatrical distribution in Finland. The short documentaries Legenda (2006) and Kohtaamisia Kuubassa (2007) completed a thematic whole dealing with the intersections of history, myths and everyday life in totalitarian Cuba.
In 2005, Halonen's feature documentary Pavlov's Dogs was completed and premiered in the main competition of Amsterdam's IDFA. The film deals with mechanisms of manipulation and power in Russia through the psychologist Sergei Knyazev. Pavlov's Dogs was screened, among other places, at MoMA in the Documentary Fortnight programme, and as the opening film of the Flahertiana documentary festival in Russia. The Meetings in Siberia festival selected Pavlov's Dogs among the best films in the festival's history. The film received an honourable mention at Kettupäivät in 2006 and a Jussi nomination in 2007.
In 2007, Shadow of the Holy Book, directed by Halonen and co-written with Kevin Frazier, was completed. The documentary deals with Turkmenistan's totalitarian regime and the propaganda cult surrounding the Ruhnama, as well as the role of Western multinational corporations in supporting the dictatorship. The film highlights how companies support dictatorships as part of business agreements, for example by translating the dictator's propaganda work into different languages.