Ruthless Times: Songs of Care (2022)

Documentary-material based choir couplet portraying the privatization of the elderly care sector in Finland. Quotes from the news media, real life political debacles, and the rhetoric with the Promises of Privatization are celebrated and which have taken over the public airspace of society and as well as real life experiences of the care workers are turned into the lyrics of serious but playful choir pieces composed by Anna-Mari Kähärä. Women working as carers in the elderly care sector sing these songs in various settings of their workplaces. Retirees, elderly citizens and dementia patients, those who have been pushed in the shadows of society and who have been coined as the "sustainability gap" sing impudent songs playing with the newspeak of the economical lingo of our era. These absurd singing tableau vivant images, elevated flash mob scenes, are juxtaposed with the documentary episodes in which the film captures, through several perspectives, testimonies and documentary characters, the crisis of the Finnish elderly care sector. By combining songs and documentary elements, the film portrays the collision between the ethics of care and the logic of profit and austerity. We have all accepted the view that we cannot afford providing decent care of the ever growing population of elderly citizens. Meanwhile, the elderly care sector has been taken over by multinational corporations.