Koko Production was founded in 2017 by a director–producer–screenwriter Mina Laamo, a visual artist with two decades long experience working in film.
She is known for creative documentaries Sorrow Tamers (Surunkesyttäjät, 2022), Becoming Me (Matka minuksi, 2015) and The Pests (Tuholaiset, 2007). In her own films she has explored grief, the sense of inadequacy, and fear of otherness – emotions we do not wish to encounter in ourselves. In addition to documentary films, she engages in cooperation with Pia Andell, who is Laamo’s co-artist in the media art installation Four Trick Pony, exhibited at the Turku Art Museum 2020–2021.
Mina Laamo graduated from the Aalto University majoring in Documentary Film. She also obtained another Master of Arts degree, majoring in Comparative Literature and Gender Studies, from the University of Helsinki.
She lectures and writes about documentary filmmaking with enthusiasm and passion.
Koko Production was founded in 2017 by a director–producer–screenwriter Mina Laamo, a visual artist with two decades long experience working in film.
Sorrow Tamers
(Surunkesyttäjät)
2022 / FINLAND / CREATIVE DOCUMENTARY / 66’
An art-house-documentary film about individuals, who have decided to face the sorrow as it exists to them. Sorrow always shakes up the life we used to know, and everything is changed.
Changed how? You do not know, unless you fearlessly step into the world of grief and, without fearing the change, step out in due course as a new, transformed version of yourself. Life is learning how to let go before death, the ultimate momentum of letting go.
Shot on film, the short episodes of individual stories form a larger story of the finite nature of life and the intrinsic need of human beings to reach out to each other, even when it is not possible.
Effects used in the film from Freesound.org under the Creative Commons 0 License (CC0 1.0) and the following effects under the Attribution License (CC BY 3.0): • thatjeffcarter: We Listen - melody / https://freesound.org/people/thatjeffcarter/sounds/141865/ • OSFX: Standing above a reactor / https://freesound.org/people/OSFX/sounds/420538/ • Mat397: Polyflute pad / https://freesound.org/people/Mat397/sounds/485078/ • striptheband: Ambient Groove 002 / https://freesound.org/people/striptheband/sounds/52020/ • YleArkisto: An aeroplane, passenger plane, propeller aircfaft, DC-3, Dakota, taxing, taking off / https://freesound.org/people/YleArkisto/sounds/256049/
SCRIPTWRITER & DIRECTOR
Mina Laamo
DIRECTOR OF CINEMATOGRAPHY
Päivi Kettunen F.S.C.
EDITOR
Tuuli Kuittinen F.C.E.
SOUND DESIGN
Janne Laine
CREATIVE PRODUCER
Pia Andell
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Atte Karttunen
PRODUCER
Mina Laamo
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Koko Production
IN CO-OPERATION WITH
Yle / Jenny Westergård
SUPPORTED BY
SES AVEK KMS TAIKE
Four Trick Pony
2020 / FINLAND / DOCUMENTARY INSTALLATION / ENDLESS
Four Trick Pony is a video installation constructed of the personal film and video archives of two documentarists. The work uncouples itself from the bonds of documentary cinema, the tradition of narrativity, and the logic of causality.
Unique at every moment, it never repeats the same twice. Prominent elements in the footage are experientiality, transitoriness, moment, attention, observation and awakening.
The initial impetus for the work was the artists’ realisation of the ever-present demand for stories. Four Trick Pony is their way of exploring what happens when narrative is rejected. What alternative ways are there to tell about the world we live in? Do we always need a story, or can its fundamental purpose – reaching out emotionally to other people – be served also without a narrative?
The exhibition:
Turku Art Museum, Finland
27 Nov 2020 – 21 Mar 2021
SCRIPTWRITERS & DIRECTORS
Pia Andell
Mina Laamo
SOUND DESIGN
Janne Laine
PRODUCERS
Pia Andell
Mina Laamo
PRODUCTION COMPANIES
Koko Production
Of Course My Films
SUPPORTED BY
AVEK TAIKE
DISTRIBUTION
AV-arkki
