Award: Oscar

Published: April 5, 2023

The Shape of Water

The events take place in 1962 and in North America, where Elisa and Zelda are cleaners and friends in a research laboratory. Speechless Elisa discovers a top-secret object in the laboratory, which is a human-like, aquatic creature worshiped by the citizens of the Amazon rainforest. Agent Strickland of the laboratory performs torturous experiments on the creature, as a result of which the creature almost perishes. An unexpected love story develops between Elisa and the utopian water creature and Elisa decides to release the creature.

The film was significantly awarded four Oscars: best direction, cinematography, music, and set design. Movie was also awarded at the Bafta Gala.

Published: April 4, 2023

Slumdog Millionaire

The film’s main character is an 18-year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, named Jamal Malik, who gets to participate in the “Do you want to be a millionaire” quiz. To everyone’s surprise, Jamal does amazingly well on the quiz. The description of the episode of the format ends at the point where the last question is yet to be asked and due to suspicion, the authorities arrest Jamal. No one can understand how he can know the answers to all the questions. Is it fate?

The film won a whopping eight Oscars (e.g. best film, direction, screenplay, and soundtrack) and was awarded also at Bafta Gala.

Published: March 31, 2023

Moulin Rouge!

The film is based on the well-known Parisian nightclub Moulin Rouge and the events take place at the beginning of the 20th century. Satine (Nicole Kidman) is a well-known courtesan of a nightclub, who aims to succeed in her career and become an actress. Christian (Evan McGregor) is a young American poet who arrives with his friends at a nightclub to plan a new show. A romance develops between these two main characters, and the focus of the film is the development of their love story.

Moulin Rouge has used many well-known pop songs, such as Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and “Material Girl”, The Beatles’ “All you need is love”, Elton John’s “Your Song”, the theme song from The Sound of Music and Nirvana’s ” Smells Like Teen Spirit”. It took almost two years to get the rights to the songs.

The film was successful at the Oscars and received two awards: best art direction-set Decoration and best costume design, and was awarded also at Bafta Gala.

Koulukino’s learning materials deal with postmodern cinema, the position of women in the Moulin Rouge community, and the musical as a type of film genre, and offer a preliminary task before watching the film. The materials are aimed at middle schools and high schools.

Published: March 27, 2023

Life of Pi

The film is a survival drama about a young Indian man and a tiger, based on Yann Martel’s bestselling novel Life of Pi. It all starts with a Japanese cargo ship that gets into trouble at sea. Everyone else perishes except Pi, the zebra, the hyena, the orangutan, and the Bengal tiger named “Richard Parker”, so Pi’s survival doesn’t seem easy.

The film was awarded four Oscars: best direction, cinematography, soundtrack, and visual effects.

The educational material of Koulukino deals with excerpts from the book and scenes from the film, the illusion of the film, and the depiction of time through the means of film. The material is aimed at high, vocational, and middle schools.

Published: March 24, 2023

Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody is based on the legendary band Queens and more specifically on its singer, Freddie Mercury. The film contains excerpts from real events.

The film tells how the band rose to fame. However, the singer’s life quickly goes downhill and in the end, in the worst misfortune of all, Freddie is diagnosed with AIDS. Despite his illness, he wants to once again pull off an all-time show at the Live Aid concert in Britain’s Wembley arena.

The film won a whopping four Oscars in the following categories: best actor, video editing, sound editing, and sound mixing.

Koulukino’s educational materials deal with Queen’s music, health, AIDS, HIV, life management, sexuality, culture, minorities, immigration, own roots, writing a film review and equivalent, writing Finnish words from English, and analyzing Finnish versions of songs. The last task is a debate exercise.

Published: March 16, 2023

West Side Story

Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.

Published: March 13, 2023

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Widowed Ada Harris lives in London in the 1950s, working as a cleaner. One day she falls in love with a Dior dress presented by her client. As a sign from her late husband, Ada receives a large sum of money for the loss of her husband Eddie in the war, as she should have received a war widow’s pension as a result of what happened.

Mrs. Harris makes a different decision compared to his previous lifestyle and makes it her goal to own a Dior dress and leaves for Paris. The film is the story of a brave woman who pursues her unique dream regardless of other people’s opinions. The film is based on Paul Galliconi’s novel Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris, which appeared in 1957.

The film was nominated for best costume design at the Oscars.

Published: February 21, 2023

Monsters, Inc.

Monsters live in their own town, where they generate electricity for the town by scaring children. Monsters get to the children by going through dimension gates. The most famous monsters in scaring children are two monsters called Mike and Sullivan. One day they meet an extraordinary child who has accidentally got lost in monster town and find out that there is a much more effective way of generating electricity than scaring: making children laugh. The film’s topic of generating electricity is indeed very topical. A fun touch in the movie is that monster think children are toxic and dangerous, so that even touching them could be fatal.

The film has won an Oscar in 2002 for the best score for the song “If I Didn’t Have You”.

Published: February 16, 2023

The Help

The film takes place in Jackson, Mississippi, USA and tells about the lives of African-American maids who worked in white homes in the early 1960s.

Jackson’s sorority girl Skeeter is an exception in her small town when she begins interviewing black women. These women have taken care of the host families’ households all their lives. At first, only Skeeter’s best friend’s family maid named Aibileen agrees to talk, but as they continue to work together, the other maids decide to open up.

The Help is a timeless, universal and touching story about friendship that crosses borders and tells that change is possible.

Published: October 19, 2022

WALL·E

In an imagined, but not-so-unrealistic world of the future, a small robot, WALL-E, is left to clean up an Earth filled with garbage. He is completely alone except for a small pet cockroach. Surprisingly, one day another robot named EVE appears on Earth, and WALL-E falls in love with her. As the story unfolds, WALL-E drifts into an unprecedented destiny and ultimately fights against human extinction.

The film was awarded the Oscar for best-animated film and the BAFTA award in the same category.