Nokia Mobile: We Were Connecting People

Arto Koskinen Finland 2017 92 min.

1982, the sleepy Finnish town of Salo. When Nokia's experiments with the new 'mobile phone’ phenomenon pay off, everyone benefits. But can the socially inspired mentality of the company handle the massive amounts of international attention?

In the eighties, Nokia suddenly became the number one player in the field of mobile phones. In Finnish corporate culture everyone is treated equally, which translated into a stream of enthusiastic innovations, original designs and passionate production. Such a fairytale could not last. Today, Nokia no longer makes mobile phones and the people who enjoyed the sudden success are now out of a job. The film sketches the rise and fall of the sympathetic local underdog, and its clash with the capitalist reality of globalization. Although the outcome of this story is known (and sad), the makers know how to keep you entertained by using flashy editing, funny anecdotes and intermezzos of nineties commercials. Travel along to a not so distant past of immortal batteries and all too familiar ringtones.