Company
Illume Ltd is a Finnish production company that specialices in creative documentary filmmaking. The company was established in 1987 by filmmakers Pertti Veijalainen, Jouko Aaltonen and Heimo Lappalainen. Since then more than 150 productions have been completed, including fifteen international co-productions. The company invests in developing entertaining, emotionally engaging films that spark debate about the society and politics in the world today.
Illume produces films for cinema and TV distribution and TV-series. Illume's films feature regularly in domestic festivals and they have won a number of prestigious awards worldwide. The company has received European Union MEDIA development slate funding four times, in 2003, 2010 2012 and 2015.
Staff
Emails firstname.lastname (a) illume.fi
Jouko Aaltonen
Producer, Director
Jouko Aaltonen (b. 1956) is an experienced producer, director and researcher. He has produced in Illume Ltd about 50 creative documentary films including several international co-productions. Among them are films by Markku Lehmuskallio and Anastasia Lapsui, Peter von Bagh, Kiti Luostarinen and others. He has also directed several awarded documentaries, including Taiga Nomads (1991, together with Heimo Lappalainen), Kusum (2000), Revolution (2006), Punksters and Youngsters (2008), Battle for the City (2011), Temple of Dreams (2015) and How to Fix the World (2023). He earned his doctoral degree in 2006 at Aalto University. He is also a visiting researcher and docent at Aalto. He is a popular lecturer and has written ten books: both textbooks about filmmaking and non-fiction about historical topics.
Oona Saari
CEO, Producer
Producer Oona Saari (b. 1993) has been working at Illume Ltd since 2017. She serves as the company's CEO and full-time producer. Since becoming a producer in 2022, she has produced three documentaries: short films Strangers in the Dark (2023) and I smell a mouse (2024) and a feature-length documentary Rebellion for Future (2025). Additionally, she has worked as a production manager/assistant producer in nine feature-length documentaries. In 2022, she was selected for the Eurodoc training program and participated IDFAcademy training that same year. In 2024 she was part of the Young Nordic Producers Club in Cannes.