Onion
The Helsinki Effect
Directed by Arthur Franck · FI, 2026 · 75 min · original language with English subtitles
How thirty-five men in brown suits accidentally ended the Cold War — an archival comedy of diplomacy.
The 1975 Helsinki Accords were dismissed as the most boring summit in history: three years of negotiations about commas. Franck raids the vaults for the deadpan absurdity of it all — the seating charts, the sauna diplomacy, the KGB’s hotel bills — and finds the moment the Iron Curtain quietly rusted through.
A film about how paperwork, occasionally, saves the world.
Director's note & bio +
Everyone remembers the wall falling. Nobody remembers the meeting where it was decided walls were, in principle, negotiable.
Credits
DirectionArthur FranckScreenplayArthur FranckEditingMark StöhrSoundJanne LaineProductionPolygraf, Hailstone, UpNorth
Screenings
Ticketing opens 1 August — sold-out screenings are marked here.
