LASKETTUA AIKAA
Audio drama series 2025
Season 1 (10 x 25 min)
Writer Hanna Leivonniemi
Concept Hanna Leivonniemi
Directed by Marja Pyykkö
Production Yle Draama
Laskettua aikaa (Countdown) is a 10 x 25 min fictional audio drama series I developed and wrote for Yleisradio (Yle). The thriller series premiered on Yle Areena and was broadcasted on Yle Radio 1 in spring 2025, with a repeat airing in summer 2026. Directed by Marja Pyykkö and starring Mimosa Willamo and Joonas Saartamo as well as Ukrainian actors Juliana Voronina and Ruslan Gunko, the series explores moral questions of surrogate parenting and human compassion in war time situation. It is set during the early days of the war in Ukraine in 2022.
The main character is Nora, a young foreign correspondent who travels to Ukraine and becomes involved in helping a Finnish couple trying to have a baby through surrogacy in Ukraine. After the war breaks out, the couple loses contact with the clinic and the Ukrainian woman carrying their biological child. The core theme of the series is human goodness—how people reach out to help one another, even in the darkest of times.
For me writing audio was a new thing, and it was fascinating to explore storytelling relying solely on sound, without visual elements that I’m so used to when writing for tv and film. The way audio is used - in headphones, coming straight to your ears - makes the medium really intimate and particular.
The story draws on my own background as a war zone journalist. I also did a lot of research and interviewed journalists who have worked in Ukraine, as well as a Finnish couple who has had a baby through surrogacy abroad. Also a large number of Ukrainians were involved in the making of the series – as actors, script consultants and fact checkers. The sensitive nature of the topic required special care, and it was extremely important to me that people directly affected by the events in Ukraine were part of the production.
The audio drama received two prestigious awards. It won the Nordic Radio Drama Award for Best Audio Drama of the Year, as well as the Sokeain Kuunnelmapalkinto (the Finnish Blind Association's Radio Drama Award) for Finland's Best Domestic Radio Drama of the Year.
You can listen to the series here: (in Finnish) https://areena.yle.fi/1-73986307
Audiodrama in the media
"Is everything that is illegal necessarily wrong?" This is the question that screenwriter Hanna Leivonniemi wants to pose to listeners.
Interview on Radio Suomi.
https://areena.yle.fi/1-74265516
Laskettua aikaa Makes the war in Ukraine feel deeply personal.
Interview on Airut-magazine.