Magneettimies
Arto Halonen:
Magneettimies (Finland, 2009)
79 min. - Finnish - No English subtitles
The Magnetic Man is a documentary film about the songwriter Pekka Streng, who died young, and his far-reaching, spiritual effect on the development of several individuals’ lives and thought. Simultaneously, the film is a story about a person who was too frail for this world.
Streng’s songs of searching spirituality, their mystical lyrics and peculiar atmospheres affected many listeners deeply even during Streng’s lifetime. For later generations too, Streng’s work has continued to move people particularly strongly. Therefore Streng’s songs and lyrics have affected his audience’s choices and the process of their inner development. Despite this, Streng has remained relatively unknown in popular culture. He is an invisible prophet, the magnetic man.
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ARTO HALONEN
Arto Halonen has directed numerous films, including the documentary films Pavlov's Dogs, Conquistadors of Cuba, The Tank Man, The Star's Caravan, A Dreamer and the Dreamtribe and Karmapa – Two Ways of Divinity. In 2005 the Minister of Culture in Finland awarded Arto Halonen the Finland Prize, the highest annual prize in the arts given by the Ministry of Culture and the state.
Among other important prizes, he has received the Humanitarian Award of the European Union in 1998, and in 2008 the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival honoured him as one of the most important documentary makers of his generation. Halonen is also the founder and the first festival director of the DocPoint - Helsinki Documentary Film Festival.
