THE HELSINKI EFFECT

In the summer of 1975, 35 heads of state and government from around the world gather at Finlandia Hall in Helsinki for an unprecedented three-day Cold War spectacle: the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known by the sexy acronym CSCE. After years of arduous negotiations in Helsinki and Geneva, they are all here to sign the Final Act. Ford, Brezhnev, Wilson, Schmidt, Honecker, Trudeau, Palme, Ceausescu and others, with Finland’s “Big Kahuna” Urho Kekkonen as host. By far the happiest of them all is Leonid Brezhnev from the Soviet Union. He had no idea that he was about to make a serious mistake with his signature. For a long time, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe was seen as an endless diplomatic battle without meaning – in retrospect, it changed the world, laid the foundations for the end of the Iron Curtain and heralded the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

ARTHUR FRANCK is a documentary filmmaker from Helsinki. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2009 and has been making documentaries for over 15 years. Together with producer Sandra Enkvist, he runs the production company Polygraf. His previous films have been selected for CPH:DOX, HotDocs, True/False, DokLeipzig, Chicago International Film Festival and DocsBarcelona. “The Hypnotist” was nominated for Best Documentary and Best Editing at the Jussi Awards in Finland 2020 and was awarded Best Feature Film at the Tampere Film Festival 2019. Franck was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Docpoint Film Festival 2019-2021 and is currently Chairman of the Finnish Documentary Guild. He is a father of three and plays basketball on Mondays.

WRITER & DIRECTOR
Arthur Franck

EDITING
Markus Leppälä, Arthur Franck

MUSIC
Uno Helmersson & Patrik Andrén

SOUNDDESIGN
Yngve Leidulv Sætre

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Antti Uoltila

PRODUCERS
Sandra Enkvist | Arthur Franck | Oskar Forstén
Stefan Kloos | Anja Dziersk (Kloos & Co)
Thorvald Nilsen (Indiefilm)

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Sandra Enkvist | Arthur Franck

PROTAGONISTS
Leonid Breschnew
Henry Kissinger
Alexander Solschenitsyn
Gerald Ford
Urho Kekkonen

The Finnish Film Foundation
AVEK Audiovisual Center
Norwegian Film Institute
Nordisk Film & TV Fond
Western Norway Filmcenter
Fritt Ord
Föreningen Konstsamfundet.
In cooperation with YLE.
In co-production with RBB in cooperation with ARTE.
In cooperation with DR, RÙV.