STEAM OF LIFE at the Kay Meek Centre

DOXA Documentary Film Festival’s Motion Pictures Series is proud to present the Western Canadian Premiere of Joonas Berghall and Mika Hotakainen’s extraordinary film STEAM OF LIFE at the Kay Meek Centre, ‘West Vancouver’s Cultural Jewel’.

In ramshackle homemade saunas, beautifully appointed wooden steam rooms, even a roadside phone booth (that serves as an impromptu hotbox) men reveal their deepest emotion to each other while sitting naked in the sauna. Conversations range from how to please women (“daily massage is key”) to the pure unadulterated joy of new fatherhood. Amidst clouds of superheated steam, a type of humble poetry unfurls, vulnerable, lovely and deeply human.

Set against the stunning magnificence of the Finnish landscape, Steam of Life is a moving ode to life, love, and the role of genuine and heartfelt conversation.

“The Finnish sauna documentary, Steam of Life, had a reputation for being a tear-jerker. I didn’t believe it until I went to see it myself, and all the men in the cinema were in tears.”
– BBC

“Saunas pop up everywhere in “Steam of Life” — a converted camper trailer, for instance, or a phone booth. As a father washes his sons, he narrates a life story of mistakes and regrets, epiphanies and redemption; the small hot room becomes something sacred and transformative. Reservations melt away, and a kind of joy rises up like steam from a bed of hot rocks.” – Variety

Tickets: $10

Available at Kay Meek Box Office:

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