Sauna Diplomacy

Summer 1970. As Finland carefully balances between East and West, diligent civil servant Heikki is ordered to host a high-ranking Soviet diplomat at his family’s lakeside cottage.

What should be a routine gesture of goodwill quickly turns into an increasingly absurd test of loyalty as every request from the guest pushes the boundaries of diplomacy, hospitality and personal dignity. Determined to protect both his family and his country’s fragile political position, Heikki swallows one humiliation after another, while the seemingly harmless weekend descends into manipulation, jealousy and psychological power games.

Sauna Diplomacy is an intimate portrait of Finlandization, revealing how international politics can invade the most private corners of everyday life and asking how much a person, or an entire nation, can bend before finally breaking.