Finland has one other film of interest due out this fall. Äideistä parhain, which will be known in English as Mother of Mine. 10 year old Helsinki resident Topi Majaniemi makes his film debut as the young Eero.

The director's last film was the well-received girl-centered film Elina, so I have high hopes for this. The Finnish Film Foundation again provides the synopsis.

Finland in the 1940s. As ten-year-old Eero´s father is about to leave for the war he says: “It´ll only be for a short while. Look after Mum now!” When a message arrives to say his father had been killed, Eero really does have to do what he promised – his mother retreats into a condition of helplessness, and Eero now has to shoulder the responsibilities of an adult. Despite all her efforts to lead a tolerable life, Eero´s mother eventually feels obliged to send Eero away as an evacuee from war-torn Finland to a Sweden at peace.

In Sweden, Eero is taken in by a farming couple, Signe and Hjalmar. The surly farmer´s wife, Signe, in particular seems to disapprove of the fact that Eero has arrived. Eero longs for his mother, as he labours like a slave on the farm. The oh-so-longed-for letters from his mother are never for him – they are always for Signe. Eventually, his mother asks in a letter that he be allowed to remain in Sweden, to enable her to move with her new love to Germany. Eero is devastated; for the first time, Signe sees Eero in all his loneliness. She opens her arms to him, as a mother; and she tells him something that she has never mentioned to him before: she and Hjalmar once had a daughter, a girl that had died; when Eero arrived, they had been expecting a girl who might offer her, Signe, some consolation in her grief. However, now she says that she is glad it was Eero that came to the farm and not some other child. Instead of being a mere farmhand, Eero is now treated as a son in the family.

Just as Eero is beginning to feel at home on the farm, living with Signe and Hjalmar, the news break that the war is over. Signe, knowing what it is to lose a child, has no desire to see Eero´s mother suffer the same fate; Signe decides therefore to send Eero back to Finland. Through cascades of tears, Eero leaves his Swedish foster parents and rejoins a mother in Finland whom he no longer feels he can fully trust.

Sixty years later Eero goes to Signe´s funeral in Sweden. While there, he acquires all the letters that his mother sent to Signe. With tears in his eyes, he reads what he was never shown – that his mother bitterly regretted ever having considered leaving him in Sweden for good. Approaching old age himself now, Eero is at last reconciled with his mother; at long last they meet as mother and son once more.

Images moved to gallery

Very nice production stills.

Here's the IMBd link:
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Official site:
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I have to concur, those are good photos. And what a touching story.