“The Lightning Rod”, interview with director Helmi Donner

At the Future Frames – Generation NEXT of European Cinema 2026, organized by European Film Promotion and the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Finnish director Helmi Donner presents The Lightning Rod (Matalappa). Her graduation film from film school in Finland, it premiered a year ago in La Cinef, the Cannes Film Festival’s student film section, an experience she still describes as both thrilling and frightening, not least because the film is deeply personal to her.

A house of silence

Donner describes The Lightning Rod as “a poetic horror film,” not built on jump scares or splatter but on the story of a young woman fleeing a toxic relationship, who takes shelter in her grandmother’s house, only to find the older woman unable to meet her in this situation. “They have this tension between them because I think they both know what each other are going through, or what they experienced with this domestic violence, but they are not able to talk about it. I really wanted to capture the silence and how to maybe break the silence in some way.”

Horror as a way to feel it in the body

Genre, for Donner, was never a distancing device but a precision tool. “I was really interested to play with the genre elements, but to try to make it as precise the experience of the manipulation and this pushing and pulling between people and the pressure. I’m really interested in finding some kind of cinematic language that would be felt in the body, that is not maybe so explanatory.” Confined to a single house over one night, the film leans on a familiar horror device, the house itself seeming to change, to signal that something is shifting beneath the surface: “It maybe comes with some kind of elevation or stylization… so that you can see that something special is happening.”

Sound as a second script

Music and sound design carry much of the film’s tension. Donner worked closely with her sound designer and composer, Peterson, to fold the score directly into the sound design. “We had this idea of meshing these things together so that the score would be deep in the sound design.

The privilege of European cinema

Asked about the role of European cinema today, Donner points to the same sense of belonging she found among this year’s Future Frames group. “I love being a European director, or I would love to be one, because I think there is something really special happening in Europe. I think there is a possibility for a real diversity of voices and styles and experiments. I felt like home in this group of directors.” At a moment when other film industries are losing their freedom, she sees a responsibility in that community: “I think it’s so important to try to resist the very forces that are on the move. I think films are so powerful in that.”

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