Thank you for this opportunity and a special thank you for the film Festival, and everything surrounding it. Both Henning and I (also my assistants) enjoyed everything about our visit to Brussels.

I was a model living and working in Los Angeles, California. In January 1995, a week after a shoot in the Canary Islands while visiting my family back home in Finland, I suffered a lower brain stroke (infarct). The common belief back in that time was that only people over forty could get strokes. The doctors did not understand what was happening to me, and when they realized that it was a stroke, I was already completely paralyzed. My Brain stem is severely damaged, and I suffer from a condition called; Locked-In Syndrome. My upper brain is in perfect state. I am lucid, and I did not lose the sense of touch. My body is also in a perfect state of health. The only problem is that the messages from my brain do not go through to my muscles to make them move. The tongue is also a muscle that I cannot move, meaning that I cannot speak either. I talk with my eyes.

First, we documented our voice system project meetings with my co-producer Tapani. In the meetings, various professionals and people who themselves required (or whose close ones required) a communication aid, discussed about assistive communication. The project started because young voice system users did not have access to a child’s synthetic Finnish voice, and graphic and grammar programs were outdated. Voice system sentences came out too often as gibberish and due to the aforementioned system deficiency, the voice that young boys used was a man’s voice. Conversely, girls would use a woman`s voice – such a situation wasn’t right! With this in mind, we started a pro bono project with my friend whose son uses a voice system with eye control. The other big issue was, and still is, a lack of knowledge. Many professionals brought up the sad fact that people, young and old, don’t get help and even professionals may lack sufficient information about communication aids. Kati joined in and wrote a text for the project. Kati’s insight impressed me, and her text helped me comprehend many things. The general importance of communication she pointed out, also reminded me of the story of Mr. Bliss, a man who developed a language in order to try to prevent any more wars from happening again after WWII. In this endeavour, however, humankind has not yet succeeded. The Bliss language (Blissymbolics), however, is today in use as an effective communication aid for people with disabilities. I asked Kati whether we could film her ways to communicate. Kati’s method of communication with her close ones, the air alphabet, is ingenious and costs nothing – neither a device nor computer is needed. Henning opened their door, Kati was in their living room and her mother was there too. I knew what had happened to Kati, I could not help it and tears came out. Kati’s mother grew worried; she asked whether something had happened to the little boy in the voice system project.

I asked Kati whether we could film her ways to communicate. Kati’s method of communication with her close ones, the air alphabet, is ingenious and costs nothing – neither a device nor computer is needed. Henning opened their door, Kati was in their living room and her mother was there too. I knew what had happened to Kati, I could not help it and tears came out. Kati’s mother grew worried; she asked whether something had happened to the little boy in the voice system project. The goal of my co-producer and I was to get our documentary on to Finnish National TV YLE. It is the best channel for documentaries in Finland, and thus, the best place to disseminate information any given documentary may provide. The TV producer gave us a time frame of 27 minutes and asked us who the protagonist is. We had Kati in mind and, when asked, Kati said yes. We met and talked about communication with Kati, Henning and Kati’s close ones, several times. We exchanged many emails with Kati. I wanted to give Kati a voice in the film and she, in return, would give a voice to children who needed a better voice system. I also sent her suggestions for film titles and got her honest opinion on which ones were good or not. One email took me by surprise. Kati informed me that she was going to London in spring and invited me along! Local cinematographer Gaza helped us in London. Things happened quite unexpectedly, and as a result, some scenes were filmed simply with my pocket camera. Co-producer and editor Tapani produced some great work, so we could use those clips too. Contracts and grants took quite a long time to materialise, therefore, my husband’s support and Kati’s example made it easier to tolerate uncertainty. Meanwhile, Kati surprised us again; she was going to Poland in autumn.

Kati, Henning, Kati’s parents and the assistants have helped us all the way. Henning was a great help also with the locations and he sometimes operated the camera. Kati has been working for a long time for various projects and with many people. Her friend Päivi is a scientist and her field is eye control. She had a clip from Kati testing eye control in Copenhagen 2005, and we got to use that clip in the documentary. Päivi also explains in the documentary why eye control is problematic. Before the documentary was finalised, family members and neighbours helped by acting as a test audience and I also asked Kati and her close ones to watch and approve the result. The documentary came out on YLE TV 1 in 2018, and it is also available on their online service too. In addition, over 100,000 people have watched the documentary in Finland. Notably, the project started in 2014 and Finnish children got a child’s voice option in 2018. Also, the grammar program got improved already in 2016, both thanks to one Finnish company Code Q and their CEO Tapio, who was inspired by the project.

Yes, the next documentary “Beauty And The Wheelchair” has been filmed. The locations are Finland, Poland and Belgium, and the film is now in the editing phase. As previously mentioned, Kati invited us along to Poland. The documentary is about Kati’s journey and the people she meets, as well as her companion called wheelchair and the beauty in life. Again, the voice you will hear are Kati’s words, and this time, the voice is a voice system made especially for her. The voice actor Mikaela recorded her voice system while we were making Eyes Can Tell. Currently, we go through Kati’s sentences with Kati. In the film, she will speak in English. She has lived in the States and communicates in English daily with Henning and the assistants. The film will also be more agreeable to an international audience. Like Kati said, they do work with Henning in many ways. I believe that they have a positive effect on every single person that they meet and not everyone is lucky enough to meet them in person. It’s also well worthwhile to explore their work and hopefully, many will also see these documentaries.

Thank you, Dan, for this opportunity.