Rosaliina Paavilainen (b. 1993, Tampere, Finland) is a Helsinki-based media artist and filmmaker working at the intersection of experimental documentary, video art, and cinema. Her work combines personal material, societal observations, and fictional storytelling to explore themes such as mortality, addiction, family relationships, communal dynamics, and embodied experiences of womanhood and shame. Her films often deal with difficult or stigmatized topics, inviting both intimate and structural reflection.

Paavilainen’s moving image works are presented at international film festivals and art exhibitions. Her latest work, A Beauty Odyssey (2024), is a 13-minute experimental documentary that examines beauty ideals and the process of growing into womanhood in the age of social media. The film premiered at Nordisk Panorama and has screened at festivals including Love & Anarchy (Helsinki IFF), Filmfest Dresden, and Tampere Film Festival. Her earlier works include Täysille katsomoille (2020), a short documentary about a small-town amateur theatre group, and If you do this, I will call you by your first name instead of Mom (2019), a deeply personal exploration of alcoholism, shame, and the mother-daughter relationship.

Her recent exhibitions include Beauty and the Land at Kronenboden gallery in Berlin (2025), To Err Is Human at Mänttä Art Festival (2021), reGeneration4 at Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne (2020), and Young Artists 2019 at Helsinki Art Hall. In 2023, she participated in The Wapping Project’s international mentoring programme during a residency at the Saari Residence supported by the Kone Foundation.

Paavilainen holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki (2022). She works independently or with a small team, regularly collaborating with cinematographer Aake Kivalo. She edits most of her own work and also works as an editor and producer for other video-based projects.

In addition to her artistic practice, Paavilainen is active in the Finnish art scene. She is the founder and curator of @avajaishaukka, an Instagram-based platform launched in 2022 that shares weekly listings of art exhibition openings in Helsinki. The account has become a widely used communication tool in Helsinki. She is currently developing it into a broader platform for regional exhibition visibility in Finland.