Liisa Akimof’s Minä ja Riikka Purra (Me and Riikka Purra) promises an intimate look at the Finns Party and its leader, but the documentary rarely gets beyond familiar headlines and political backstage glimpses.
Liisa Akimof is a Finnish rock pioneer, but her skills as a documentarist fail to impress in this attempt to delve into the world of the Finns Party.
In Minä ja Riikka Purra (Me and Riikka Purra), Akimof seeks to understand “the party’s way of thinking.” She’s especially keen on drilling into the mind of Finns Party leader Riikka Purra, who also serves as the finance minister.
But backroom discussions with Purra reveal almost nothing other than her occasional frustration with politics. Nothing for Finnish tabloids to write about, and nothing to cinemagoers to care about.
Hups! But wait . . . I do remember a scene filmed in a backroom of government negotiations where Purra bursts into tears and buries her face in her hands. The following scene shows a close-up of her moist eyes as she stands next to Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP) at a press conference, where he declares that every matter regarding immigration must be handled with respect for human dignity.
This burst of desperation and resulting emotional turmoil, according to my sources, was not publicly known until now. But will it change the course of history and give people something to ponder for generations to come?
Akimof takes care to revisit Finns Party media frenzies that dominated Finnish coverage in 2025, the year in which she spent six months filming the documentary. Much of that time seems to have been spent behind a laptop, archiving headlines.
The film shows archive footage of Teemu Keskisarja’s immigration remarks on television, as well as the “Asian Eyes” photo scandal, in which Finns Party MPs posted photos of themselves making racially offensive slanted-eye gestures, sparking furious comments from Japanese travellers aimed at Finnair.
This burst of desperation and resulting emotional turmoil, according to my sources, was not publicly known until now. But will it change the course of history and give people something to ponder for generations to come?
Akimof seems to have been present at some of the press conferences about the controversies, but so what.
The documentary itself is filmed amateurishly, despite being shot with an obviously professional camera. The footage looks as if it were filmed on a mobile phone, with little regard for composition or depth of field. And don’t get me started on the lighting.
To top it all, Akimof tries to portray herself as an outsider to the working press. A cameraman calls her “an anarchist,” and she seems to like it. She mocks the reporters’ adherence to the rules requiring them to wait in a designated area outside the building for comments from ministers during the budget negotiations.
Akimof repeatedly calls the designated waiting area karsina, or pen. She would rather stand in the street like a regular citizen, only to soon find herself in the pen, too.
“How do you take a piss?” Akimof wonders when the reporters reveal that they have been waiting for comments on the outcome of the negotiations, in two shifts, in the cold.
Indeed.
‘Minä ja Riikka Purra’ opens in cinemas on October 30.
FILM DETAILS
Title: Minä ja Riikka Purra
Production year: 2026
Running time: 93 minutes
Director: Liisa Akimof
Producer: Liisa Akimof
Director of photography: Liisa Akimof
Screenwriter: Liisa Akimof
Genre: Documentary
