Valentin Vaala

Valentin Vaala was a Finnish film director, screenwriter and film editor, born Valentin Yakovich Ivanoff in Helsinki on 13 October 1909 to Russian parents who had moved from Saint Petersburg, and he died in Helsinki on 21 November 1976. After working as an illustrator for the daily newspaper Uusi Suomi, he began making films with his friend Theodor Tugai, later known as Teuvo Tulio, and from 1935 he was contracted to Suomi-Filmi for the rest of his career. He directed 44 feature-length films, the second most among Finnish directors, many of them adaptations of Finnish literary classics, and his popular films reached very large audiences for the size of the country. His career spanned 1929 to 1973 and has been called one of the most significant in the history of Finnish cinema. He won three Jussi Awards for directing and one for screenwriting.