The Midwife is a romance-drama set during World War 2 in Finland’s Lapland province, a major European battleground at that time. Based on Katja Kettu’s bestselling novel, The Midwife turns on the love affair between a Lapp midwife and a Nazi SS officer set against the backdrop of the Lapland War, which opposed Finnish and German armies in 1944–45.

The themes in the story are international: it’s about conquering love and war, and class boundaries that have broken down. The film is beautifully shot and intelligently directed, but it generates its overriding power from the towering central performance of Finnish actress Krista Kosonen, who will be in Kilkenny at the weekend to present the film.