Whorytale

Milla and Kalla, two women in their twenties, go into sex work and are visited by Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sexuality. As they gain control over their lives and livelihoods, the barrier between the natural and supernatural worlds begins to break, and Milla and Kalla are faced with the forces of patriarchy who cannot allow a world where women make their own choices to emerge. When Milla becomes pregnant and Kalla disappears mysteriously, a final battle looms between the forces of a new and better world, and a misogynistic backwards looking past.

Director’s statement
Amor omnia vincit? Ours is a story of young women who hit a wall when trying to live the life that has been preordained for them. They find that the biggest obstacle to living a good or even a decent life are patriarchal structures with all kinds of hierarchies and concepts of property and ownership.

The novel Huorasatu was published in 2011. It was at least a decade ahead of its time, but still caused quite a splash in the Finnish book scene. It was nominated for the Finlandia prize, greatest literary honor in the country, and then promptly disappeared from the scene, and from the shelves of all but the most underground bookstores. There was an obvious attempt at silencing, that kind of worked – for a while – but no secrets stay buried. Between university students, gender politics enthusiasts, lovers of progressive genre literature, word of mouth kept building; have you read it? Can I borrow it?