Oulu Music Video Festival (OMVF) is the world’s oldest music video festival and has taken place annually since 1994 in the northern Finnish city of Oulu, every year at the end of August. Now celebrating its 32nd edition, the festival presents a diverse program of music video and film screenings, panel discussions with international guests, art exhibitions, afterparties, and much more. For over three decades, OMVF has been a central hub for Finnish music video culture and today serves as the guardian of the world’s largest archive of Finnish music videos—holding over 7,000 videos across all imaginable genres.

For ALTER, OMVF’s artistic director Juhani Oivo has delved deep into the archive to curate a special program of obscure and experimental music videos from Finland’s alternative music scene. Audiences can expect everything from industrial noise and ambient soundscapes to electronic pop and distorted tango. Many of the videos in this program have never before been shown in Denmark and are not available on YouTube or streaming platforms—they represent a musical and visual underground that resists mainstream circulation.

OMVF recently launched its first international competition: the Nordic Music Video Competition. From all submitted videos, twelve will be selected to be screened at the festival, and their directors will be flown to Oulu with accommodation paid for the duration of the festival. The winner of the competition will be awarded at the OMVF Awards Gala with a prize designed by artist Irene Suosalo and a pair of Genelec 8351B SAM™ speakers valued at €8,000, provided by Genelec. Submissions for the competition are open until 20.6. and can be submitted via filmfreeway.com/omvf using the code “ALTERxOMVF”.