Pleasurable Void
Portrait of one runner's inner life on the trails
Portrait of one runner's inner life on the trails. Not about performance or identity — about what happens when you stop chasing both. The raw sensations of the body in motion, and the memories those sensations leave behind. Together they dissolve into something unexpected — a pleasurable void. A state you can't quite name, but recognize when you're in it.
Runner: Aki Hurula, @ahurula
Filmmaker: Jukka Tallinen
Concept & production: Aki & Jukka
“We try to get into flow, but it just doesn’t feel like much”
Behind the film
“Aki and I met through trail running — moving in nature and pushing our own physical limits is something we share. The idea for the film grew out of runs we did together. After Banff Mountain Film Festival we were both buzzing. I think that's where the idea quietly took root. We'd make something together, on our own terms. No agenda, just the two of us making something about running.
We kept coming back to feelings. The emotional states that surface while you run, and what actually matters out there. Running can be euphoric, but it can also be brutal. It holds a lot of the same contrasts you find in life. The solitude and the presence. The suffering and the release. That's part of what makes trail running so addictive.
We kept the rules simple: shoot everything in the nature around us, in the places we run. We wanted the seasons in it too. Up here in North Savo they arrive fully and distinctly, all four of them.
There's a window in autumn, maybe a few days, maybe none at all depending on the year, when the trees and ground are frozen but the lakes are still open water. We hit those days. The atmosphere was something else. Heavy snow winters aren't a given anymore either, but we got lucky there too. It felt like a luxury to be able to wait and choose the best conditions rather than just take what we could get.”