The Butterfly from Ural or Far Away from Ural is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 2008 animated

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 short film directed by Katariina Lillqvist.

The film tells a story of former President of Finland Carl Gustav Mannerheim – although his name is not mentioned in the film – on a journey to Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

 where he meets a young Kyrgyz boy. Mannerheim takes the boy with him back to Finland where he names him Butterfly. The boy becomes Mannerheim's servant and lover. When the Finnish Civil War

Finnish Civil War

The Finnish Civil War was a part of the national, political and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The Civil War concerned control and leadership of The Grand Duchy of Finland as it achieved independence from Russia after the October Revolution in Petrograd...

 starts, Mannerheim abandons his lover in the middle of the battlefield. According to the director Lillqvist, the film is based on a folklore from the Pispala

Pispala

Pispala is a city district 2.5 km from the centre of Tampere, Finland. It is located on the northern slope of Pispalanharju, the highest esker in Finland....

 district of Tampere

Tampere

Tampere is a city in southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in any of the Nordic countries. The city has a population of , growing to approximately 300,000 people in the conurbation and over 340,000 in the metropolitan area. Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in...

.

The film caused a fuss in the Finnish media and evoked discussion about the limits of the freedom of speech

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...

 and the sexual orientation

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

 of Mannerheim. It was nominated the best domestic animation at the Tampere Film Festival

Tampere Film Festival

The Tampere Film Festival is a short film festival held every March in the Finnish town of Tampere. It is accredited by the film producers' society FIAPF, and together with the short film festivals in Oberhausen and Clermont-Ferrand, it is among the most important European short film festivals.The...

 in March 2008, and was broadcast by YLE the same month.