About

Set off the coast of Finland on a tiny island in the Baltic Sea, Själö – Island of Souls is a moving meditation on the island’s complex relationship with transgressive women, illness, and authority.

Finnish artist and filmmaker Lotta Petronella likens to her documentary to that of a modern gothic story. With its wild and isolated location deeply intertwined with a long and turbulent history, it is not difficult to see why. From its early days as a remote hospital for lepers and the incurable, then the institutionalisation of difficult women, to an asylum for the mentally unwell, the island has a new role as home to the Centre of Environmental Research of the University of Turku. This irony, of a centre for the captured and observed to now be a recognised centre of scientific research, is not lost on Petronella who carefully crafts her otherworldly narrative with elements of past and present. Accompanied by the atmospheric, experimental soundscape by Finnish composer Lau this documentary is mesmerising.