&ldquoCountless amounts of people have given their first cry in an ancient and very typically Finnish smoke sauna.&rdquo The eloquent narration of the short film Sauna was written by Usko Kemppi (1907&ndash1994), author and masterly lyricist of Finnish popular music. The metaphors that abound in Kemppi&rsquos narration summarise in a poetic manner the earliest and still living history of the Finnish sauna.

The film Sauna was made by the production company Finlandia-Kuva, which was established during the Second World War in 1943 to entertain the civilian population, fatigued by the war, with optimistic films of cultural interest. The company specialised in newsreels and short films screened in the theatres before the main film. In 1945, the largest Finnish film production company Suomi-Filmiacquired Finlandia-Kuva and turned it into its own stills and short film company. The independent activities of Finlandia-Kuva ended in 1950.

The company&rsquos Finlandia-Reviews continued to be produced until 1964, however. At that time, the practice of screening newsreels and short films before the main film in Finnish cinemas came to an end. In addition to newsreels, Finlandia-Kuva produced, between 1943 and 1950, nearly 1000 black and white short films for the State of Finland, various cultural establishments and the industry sector. The nation-wide theatre network of Suomi-Filmi was always in charge of the distribution of Finlandia-Kuva&rsquos films.Finlandia-Kuva also ran its own lending library of educational 16 mm films, which served the whole country.

Holger Harrivirta (1915&ndash1986) acted as the production manager and director of Finlandia-Kuva, and the cinematographer was Björn Soldan (1902&ndash1953), the esteemed virtuoso of Finnish documentary film, who had studied at the Munich Art Academy in the early 1920s. In three years, Soldan filmed and edited the company&rsquos first 100 newsreels and short films. When he left in 1945, the new director of photography Unto Kumpulainen (1917&ndash2000) inherited his timeworn Eyemo camera with a clockwork motor and, to his great annoyance, had to get used to its whims. Luckily, Kumpulainen also had at his disposal a new battery-powered Arriflex with 60-metre film magazines, and to load them, two competent assistants, Niilo Heino (1927&ndash2005) and Vilho Pitkämäki (1925&ndash1993).

The 1947 short film Sauna was, however, still a product of the archaic period of 30-metre film reels and their standard shots edited together crudely. The film was probably shot in June and July 1946 during a trip to the provinces of the Western coast and from there to Northern Finland. Beautiful lakes, boats gently passing by and other lyrical scenes were taken from cuts found in the archives and added later. When the narration stops, the musical background is provided by the good old Säkkijärven polkka, played on an old clay phonograph record. There was a permanent shortage of film stock in Finland at the time, which limited filming on location to the bare essentials. Electric light was not always available on location, and indoor scenes were shot in the light of smoking paraffin lamps borrowed from the locals.

This short film with a seemingly freely chosen topic was probably commissioned by the Foreign Ministry, for the narration written by the author Usko Kemppi was also translated into English. Post-war Finland was presented to the world not only as the land of modern paper factories, but also as the land of thousands of lakes and exotic traditions. This is probably the real reason why Harrivirta and Kumpulainen spent more than 240 metres of expensive film in the summer of 1946, recording scenes of a traditional Finnish sauna evening. The following year, it was already the turn of Eino Mäkinen (1908&ndash1987), the ethnographic cinematography expert, and director Erik Blomberg (1913&ndash1996). They used Finlandia-Kuva&rsquos Arriflex camera, which had proven its worth, to film goldwashers and reindeer-herding Lapps in Northernmost Finland.

As a result of the merger, the short films of Finlandia-Kuva became the property of the short film department of Suomi-Filmi. The valuable material did, however, not remain intact. Sauna was also tampered with. To suit the tastes of the 1960s, a bit of sex was added, the film was re-edited and a new sound track recorded. An original print of the 1947 short film was, however, later found. It was duplicated for future generations in 1981 by the Finnish Film Archive in the laboratory of Suomi-Filmi, the most powerful film production company of independent Finland.