Shorts

'Nun or Never!', Heta Jäälinoja: Film Review

Vassilis Kroustallis 23 December 2025

'Nun or Never!', Heta Jäälinoja animation film still

The Finnish animation artist Heta Jäälinoja (also a graduate of the Estonian Academy of Arts) is one of the emerging indie animation artists who continue and renew the Nordic/Estonian tradition of quirky comedy storytelling, in a bare-bones (but engaging) visual environment, and who hit the engagement mark.

Her focus on the little things (and not the big dramas) that constitute a woman's will and desire is evident in her graduation short 'Penelope' (2016), in which a woman tries to tidy her apartment to look perfect for the man of her dreams (needless to say, the man proves to be not ideal either).

Her comedic-dreamy turn in 'Nun or Never!' (2023, production: Böhle Studios) premiered at Annecy Festival (we included it in our Top Picks of the festival) and traveled in more than 100 festivals -winning more than 12 awards in the process. In 'Nun or Never!', the nun's collective harmony is interrupted when one nun finds herself in the garden, and she is confronted by the human desire to connect with another being; her own story, stress, and frustration start to resonate with the crowd as well.

Heta Jäälinoja does not issue a shout-out-loud letter against conformity or religion here; her approach is slier, and more humane (and inclusive). Human desires are unapologetically part of the same natural (Earth) process that the nuns cultivate, and the collective mass all the nuns form when singing or going down the stairs is never the same; it still evolves, moves around in different ways, and is never at rest.

Now focus on our central character as well, and the brilliant scene of trying to make all those same-colored, dark blue robes fit (and no one does the trick), as if they had a life of their own. Sometimes you are what you wear, especially when you cannot reveal yourself without your garments.

'Nun or Never!' embraces less of a stress or a revolt and more of a happy confusion as a prerequisite of a normal need to connect. The desires and their fulfilment (or the lack of fulfilment), the dreamy flower sequence, and the reintegration into a nun choir that suddenly seems less homogenous than previously imagined attest to this. This translates into the film's color palette and sound, which are never intrusive, but both serve as a small (but necessary) reminder that small differences matter. In contrast, the male figure and the yellowish uniform look very otherworldly; both the object of admiration and the non-fittingness of a person whose only act of tenderness is to deflate the flower of (de-flower) his partner.

Sisterhood is cherished here, yet it has to be gained - it is not already given; just compare the pan towards the different windows of the starting scene (like closed worlds) with the concluding pan shot with the main character checking her fellow nuns' desires from below -it feels like understanding from the bottom up. With its earthly atmosphere and non-conventional feel-good characters, it succeeds in bringing our own bag of stress and confusion regarding relationships into the fore - in a slightly offbeat, but never violent or darkish turn. Heta Jäälinoja likes all her characters -and she makes us embrace them in all their semi-anarchic splendor.