Watch on Yle Areena:

https://areena.yle.fi/1-66488051

(19 min)

Festivals and awards:

Miob in Shorts Award, Winner, 2023

Tampere Film Festival, Generation XYZ, Audience Award, 2022

Cottbus Film Festival, Special Prize for a Director, 2022

Manchester Film Festival, Best Student Film, 2022

Transilvania Shorts, Best Actor, 2022

Budapest Indie Film Festival, Best Comedy, 2022

Sydney Short Film Festival, Best Comedy, 2022

Santorini Film Festival, Best Comedy, 2022

Neitofestivaali, Best Film, 2021

European Cinematography Awards, Best Student Film, 2022

European Cinematography Awards, Best Student Film Cinematography, 2022

Aesthetica Short Film Festival, Best Comedy, Nominee, 2022

Arctic Film Festival, Best Student Production, Nominee, 2022

Lapinlahti Film Festival, Official Selection, 2024

LA Comedy Film Festival, Official Selection, 2023

Encounters Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022 

Indiecork Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

Red Carpet Festari, Fiktion Parhaimmistoa, 2023

SES - Lyhyesti kerran kuussa, Elämä on juhla, 2022

Helsinki Love and Anarchy Film Festival, Official Selection, 2021

Blue Sea Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

Espoo Ciné, Ciné kylässä, 2022

Crossing Europe, Official Selection, 2023

Postira Seaside Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

Bolton Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

13th Parish Festival, Official Selection, 2023

Black Sea Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

Tacoma Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

Athens Short Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

Canadian Int. Comedy Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

Sedicicorto International Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

Bucharest Short Film Festival, Official Selection, 2022

JärviKino, Lyhytelokuvanäytös, 2023

Art Giraffe Int. Film Festival, Official Selection, 2024

Riviera Punavuori, Punavuoren teatterin avajaisjuhlat, 2022

Review of the film by Matthew Chan, Encounters Film Festival:

“There was a time, astonishingly, where portraying corporate Wall Street guys as bloodthirsty, conscience-free murderers seemed chic. Santtu Salminen understands this sentiment and with his absurdist Primal Therapy breathes new life into a tired trope. An important distinguishing factor here is the age of his protagonist, Jussi, a man past middle age seemingly at the end of the road careerwise. Years of grinding projects as “Jussi the Jock” has left him with a divorced wife, a rude child and plenty of processed food to eat. He’s practically staring down his obsolescence when the young, fit and certainly more productive Aleksi picks him up in his swanky Porsche for a corporate retreat of sorts.

The key to returning to Jussi’s prime, it appears, is to go primal, to let go of all sense of good taste, starting with your clothes and finally your morals. The pleasures of Salminen’s film stems not just from seeing naked men wrestle in an uber-masculine yet distinctly homoerotic manner, but in viewing the warped psyche of the modern capitalist. It’s a sort of body horror of the mind, where years of repression and frustration from a lack of financial success exhibit themselves in a fundamental rewiring of the brain, creating an animalistic urge to dominate, and of course, kill.”

— Matthew Chan

https://www.encounters.film/primal-therapy