As war rages across the world and global stability looms further and further from the realm of possibility, the idea of escapism feels as relevant as ever. Director Inka Achté has long understood the importance of having an escape valve in times of great sociopolitical distress and, with “Soap Fever,” she sets out to investigate this notion through revisiting a very specific phenomenon: the mindblowing popularity of American daytime series “The Bold and the Beautiful” in Finland during the country’s economic downturn of the early 1990s.
Speaking with Variety ahead of the film’s premiere at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, where she also premiered “Golden Land” back in 2022, Achté says she had been thinking about the TV phenomenon for years. Once she moved back to her home country following the birth of her first son, her desire to “examine what kind of soil” she grew up in led her to finally explore the story on screen.
“Initially, I thought it would be a playful, light and nostalgic exploration of a strange cultural phenomenon: how a small, recession-struck Nordic country fell in love with a pink, glossy American soap opera,” she goes on. “But as I began digging deeper, I realized this wasn’t just about kitsch fandom. It was about survival. The show arrived during Finland’s worst economic crisis, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when people had lost jobs, homes, and hope. That contrast between national despair and glamorous escapism felt cinematically powerful.”
The director proceeded to immerse herself in research to understand the 90s hysteria, watching old news reports, talk shows and footage of the American actors during their immensely popular visits to Finland. The “real heart” of her research, however, came in the shape of real-life, ordinary fans. “I wanted people who had grown up with the show and whose lives had been shaped by that era like my life was,” she says, recalling how she scoured online forums and relied on word of mouth to find her subjects. “I was looking for people who could tell their stories engagingly, conveying both humor and the touch of pain quintessential to that era in Finland.”
Although Achté was eager to interview some of the original cast members of “The Bold and the Beautiful,” financial restrictions linked to the film’s modest budget made it impossible to shoot outside of Finland. What started as an impediment ended up creatively fuelling the director, who focused on the people who cared — and still care — about the actors instead. “This is a collective story of us Finns and our recovery from collective trauma,” says the filmmaker, adding that, despite the cast having not watched the film just yet, some of the stars are aware of its making.
Asked whether she thinks a similar phenomenon could happen in Finland today, Achté notes that media consumption today is “fragmented.” “Algorithms personalize our experiences. Collective monoculture moments are rarer. That said, shared phenomena still exist but they happen online, across borders, often without geographical concentration.”
“The intensity might still be possible, but the physical, communal aspect feels like something from another era,” she points out. “I feel like this kind of collective joy can be rare in today’s polarized world, and I do miss it a lot.”
“Soap Fever,” courtesy of Inka Achté
In a world dominated by remakes and sequels, and a time where analog is proving cooler than digital with younger generations, “Soap Fever” also taps into the timely topic of nostalgia. “I guess there is a longing for the 90s and early 2000s at the moment, perhaps because we are again living through economic insecurity, polarization, and geopolitical tension,” says Achté. “Nostalgia can be comforting.”
Still, the director alerts that her film doesn’t portray the 90s as a “better” time. “They were traumatic [years] for many people, including me. It’s not about wanting the past back; it’s about longing for the feeling of connection and shared experience. In that sense, the film contributes to a broader cultural reflection on how we cope with uncertainty. But I also hope it reminds people not to lose each other.”
Achté also emphasizes her desire to destigmatize daytime television and soap operas as “lesser-than” entertainment, especially considering how fans of such media products are often looked down upon or seen as childish in popular culture. “I began this project with a degree of arrogance, smirking at the BB fans. As a teenager, I thought the BB fans were unsophisticated, only because their favorite pop culture wasn’t as ‘cool’ as I thought the pop culture I consumed was.”
“We often dismiss certain forms of culture as ‘lowbrow,’ but in moments of crisis, people don’t need prestige, they need connection,” she says, recalling how she realized the intensity of fandom is essentially equal despite having different targets. “Also, TV is free. Going to the opera isn’t. A soap opera can carry as much emotional weight as an arthouse film if it becomes part of someone’s survival story.”
“Soap Fever” is produced by Napafilms Oy in co-production with Story AB. Raina Film Festival Distribution handles sales.
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