Directed by Arto Koskinen • Documentary • 2017 • 60 minutes

Once upon a time there was a large Finnish company that manufactured the world’s best and most innovative mobile phones. This film tells the rise and fall of Nokia and the Finnish mobile phone industry from grassroots, the point of view of the basic engineers and experienced by those who made the miracle happen and then faced the destruction.

Many ended unemployed, some moved to new areas of work, and few found a new innovative entrepreneur in themselves. Today, something new may be smouldering in the ruins of Nokia.

Nokia’s annual budget was larger than that of the Government of Finland. People who got a job in that company rose to an undefined higher caste in which abundance was guaranteed till the end of their life.

Along with success, the Finnish company’s ego began to swell. At one time, Nokia’s CEO wanted Finland’s whole school system to be revamped so it would produce more innovative Nokia employees. Whenever Nokia wanted something, the small northern country bowed. Unfortunately, a series of wrong choices within the company slowly but surely dropped it from the market leadership.

In September 2013, the Finnish portion of the mobile phone story came to an end: Nokia announced the sale of its mobile phone operations to Microsoft. This caused country-wide mourning but maybe also relief. Some people thought the country and its citizens were released from the company’s false power. The film tells the grand story from a human aspect using a multitude of audio-visual means. We look at the characters’ life today and we hear their stories in interviews. In addition we show interesting archive material from both Nokia’s as well as the characters’ own archives, not forgetting the social media and advertising.