NIMBY – NOT IN MY BACKYARD

Teemu Nikki | Finland | 2021 | 94 min |  FINNISH S.-T.EN.

Celebrated writer-director Teemu Nikki’s topical and tense film pulls no punches when it comes to those two taboos of polite company: religion and politics. “The Third World War” comes to the doorstep of a polyamorous couple to the dismay of their daughter on the occasion of her coming out.

Mervi (Susanna Pukkila) thinks that the most outrageous thing to happen on her trip home will be introducing her “hillbilly” parents to her Muslim girlfriend, Kata (Almila Bagriacik). She didn’t count on her ex (Elias Westerberg) being taken under the wing of a local Nazi (Euthanizer‘s Matti Onnismaa) and for the unexpected arrival of Kata’s mother, a prominent Muslim politician, to spark a life-or-death hostage situation. Aggressors and side-switchers present both inside and outside of Mervi’s childhood home, a powder keg of clashing ideologies and prejudices slung by all sides is captured through raucous dialogue and engrossing split screens. All while the clock counts down and each involved asks themselves: Who will take action first?