Teuvo Tulio (1912-2000) was one of the most original directors in Finnish film history. Growing up in the newly independent Finland, he lived most of his life in the Finnish cultural and social context, yet he always remained something of an outsider and ended up as a total recluse.

This is the first English-language collection on this innovative director, exploring Tulio's unique style and the extent, and effect of his obsessive recirculation of story elements and stylistic patterns in his work. A range of international scholars analyse how Tulio created his own brand of excessive melodrama, and follow the strange trajectory of his career from within the studio system to the outsider status of an independent producer-director.


Teuvo Tulio (1912 2000) was one of the most obsessive directors in film history. As an independent producer and an increasingly reclusive personality, he developed his own, excessive brand of melodrama, haunted by irresistible temptations, obsessive desires, mad jealousies and toxic moralism. Combining cultural and historical contextualisation with formalist analysis, ReFocus: The Films of Teuvo Tulio is the first English-language study on this innovative director. Three internationally recognised scholars analyse the strange trajectory of his career through its impressive beginning within the Finnish studio system to becoming an outsider, an independent producer-director who could single-mindedly pursue his own, highly idiosyncratic line.