Kukushka (Cuckoo)

September 1944. Two runaways, a young Finnish sniper and an older Russian officer, find temporary shelter in the isolated hut of a young Lap woman, whose husband had been away fighting for years. The sniper and the woman speak the same language, but in different dialects, and hardly understand each other - but then neither of them knows a word of Russian. The meeting between the indoctrinated, grimly disposed Russian, who wants to kill the Finn because he wears a German uniform and the Finn, who only wants to be on his way, holds the potential for a tragic outcome. However, the Lap woman’s confident, quietly self-controlled conduct reminds both that there is more to a man than the clothes he wears or the language he speaks. A force of nature in every sense, she nurses both of them back from the brink of death and offers them common ground on which they can both meet.