{"id":247,"date":"2026-09-24T11:01:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T11:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/?page_id=247"},"modified":"2026-09-24T13:31:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T13:31:54","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-cover alignfull has-custom-content-position is-position-bottom-left\" style=\"padding-right:var(--wp--preset--spacing--50);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60);padding-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--50);min-height:600px;aspect-ratio:unset;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1440\" class=\"wp-block-cover__image-background wp-image-246\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/lp-about-hero-north-to-south.jpg\" style=\"object-position:50% 65%\" data-object-fit=\"cover\" data-object-position=\"50% 65%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/lp-about-hero-north-to-south.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/lp-about-hero-north-to-south-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/lp-about-hero-north-to-south-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/lp-about-hero-north-to-south-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/lp-about-hero-north-to-south-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/lp-about-hero-north-to-south-2048x1152.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><span aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-cover__background has-background-dim-20 has-background-dim\" style=\"background-color:#0b0d12\"><\/span><div class=\"wp-block-cover__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-cover-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"color:#8fb2d6;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase\">Laurentius Paulus \u00b7 About<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading has-xx-large-font-size\"><strong>DANIEL PAAVOLA<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-text-subtitle is-style-text-subtitle--1\"><em>The person behind the journal<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-81318348 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\" style=\"padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60)\">\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Laurentius Paulus is the name under which Daniel Paavola \u2014 a Finnish documentary filmmaker, writer and journalist based in Porvoo \u2014 keeps the research journal of <a href=\"https:\/\/ataleofanewera.woodslopecabin.com\/\"><em>A Tale of a New Era<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-border-color has-background has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-cc0b9354 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\" style=\"border-color:#2c333d;border-width:1px;border-left-color:#8fb2d6;border-left-width:3px;background-color:#12141a;padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40);padding-right:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40);padding-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40)\">\n<style>.ab-f{display:grid;grid-template-columns:auto 1fr;gap:.55rem 1.5rem;margin:0}.ab-f dt{font-size:.72rem;letter-spacing:.2em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#8fb2d6;padding-top:.2rem}.ab-f dd{margin:0;color:#d8d3cb}@media(max-width:600px){.ab-f{grid-template-columns:1fr;gap:.2rem}.ab-f dd{margin-bottom:.7rem}}<\/style><dl class=\"ab-f\"><dt>Based in<\/dt><dd>Porvoo, Finland<\/dd><dt>Work<\/dt><dd>Director \u00b7 Writer \u00b7 Documentary filmmaker<\/dd><dt>Studied<\/dt><dd>Philosophy of Religion, Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki<\/dd><dt>Debut feature<\/dt><dd><em>History on a Story Arc<\/em> \u2014 post-production, premiere 2027<\/dd><dt>Studio<\/dt><dd><a href=\"https:\/\/www.woodslopecabin.com\/\">Woodslope Cabin<\/a><\/dd><\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Laurentius Paulus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Laurentius Paulus<\/em> follows an old scholarly custom: from the Renaissance onwards, writers who took part in learned public debate often rendered their names in Latin \u2014 as Mikael Agricola and Carl Linnaeus did. Lauri is the Finnish form of Laurentius, and Paavola comes from Paavo, the Finnish form of Paul \u2014 in Latin, Paulus. Daniel, his middle name, is the name he uses as a filmmaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">History as something lived<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Born in Finland, Paavola spent part of his childhood in Israel in the 1970s as the child of Finnish missionary workers. Israel has remained a recurring point of return: he has visited or lived in the country across six different decades. These repeated encounters \u2014 with the same places transformed by time, and with his own changing position in relation to them \u2014 formed an early experience of history as something lived rather than merely observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Other frameworks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the 1990s and early 2000s, extended journeys through Africa and Asia exposed him to radically different cultural frameworks and to the disorientation of culture shock. The experience deepened his interest in how language, tradition and social environment shape what human beings perceive as reality. Alongside these journeys he trained in youth work and journalism, and later spent ten years working with young people and in child welfare \u2014 work that gave the inquiry a practical foundation in human development, crisis, continuity and change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">An impasse that became an inquiry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paavola went on to study philosophy of religion at the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. In 2012 his master\u2019s thesis on Paul\u2019s Letter to the Romans reached a conceptual impasse, followed by burnout. What first looked like the collapse of an academic project became the beginning of a different form of inquiry \u2014 one pursued through lived experience, personal memory, historical texts, travel, visual models and documentary film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the following fourteen years the research developed alongside ordinary life rather than within an academic institution. Its central question became how continuity might be described when the language of individual agency no longer seems sufficient. This led him to distinguish between two ways of seeing history: as a field shaped by human action, and as a dramatic movement in which the human being takes part as a protagonist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A dialogue with the model<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2025 he began using large language models as practical tools in the screenwriting process \u2014 to organise material, develop synopses and examine the relationships proposed by a seven-era model he had developed over the preceding years. The work evolved into a dialogue between lived experience and computational language, in which intuitively perceived relationships could be tested across historical texts, traditions and conceptual vocabularies. This journal is the record of that dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The films<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His debut feature documentary, <em>History on a Story Arc<\/em>, brings this journey into cinematic form. Filmed primarily in rural Southern Finland and in Jerusalem, it places the dramatic arc over the historical timeline and asks what becomes visible when humanity is understood not only as an agent shaping history, but as a protagonist taking part in an action already underway. It is the opening film of <em>A Tale of a New Era<\/em>, a seven-year cinematic research programme produced through Woodslope Cabin, in which film, essays, visual models and dialogue develop together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<style>.lp3{display:grid;grid-template-columns:repeat(3,1fr);gap:1.25rem}.lp3 a{display:flex;flex-direction:column;gap:.5rem;padding:1.6rem;border:1px solid #2c333d;background:#12141a;color:inherit!important;text-decoration:none!important;transition:border-color .3s,transform .3s,box-shadow .3s}.lp3 a:hover{border-color:#8fb2d6;transform:translateY(-4px);box-shadow:0 18px 50px -24px rgba(143,178,214,.5)}.lp3 .n{font-size:.72rem;letter-spacing:.2em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#8fb2d6}.lp3 .t{font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:1.45rem;line-height:1.15}.lp3 .d{color:#a7a39c;font-size:.95rem;line-height:1.55}.lp3 .go{margin-top:auto;padding-top:.8rem;font-size:.75rem;letter-spacing:.16em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#8fb2d6}@media(max-width:820px){.lp3{grid-template-columns:1fr}}<\/style><div class=\"lp3\"><a href=\"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/journal\/\"><span class=\"n\">Read<\/span><span class=\"t\">The Journal<\/span><span class=\"d\">Process notes, reflections and turning points, written as the inquiry unfolds.<\/span><span class=\"go\">Open \u2192<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/ataleofanewera.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/book-one\/\"><span class=\"n\">Watch<\/span><span class=\"t\">History on a Story Arc<\/span><span class=\"d\">The first film of A Tale of a New Era. Premiere 2027.<\/span><span class=\"go\">About the film \u2192<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/filmfreeway.com\/danielpaavola\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"n\">Festivals &amp; press<\/span><span class=\"t\">FilmFreeway profile<\/span><span class=\"d\">Filmmaker profile for festivals, programmers and press.<\/span><span class=\"go\">Open \u2192<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laurentius Paulus is the name under which Daniel Paavola \u2014 a Finnish documentary filmmaker, writer and journalist based in Porvoo \u2014 keeps the research journal of A Tale of a New Era. Based in Porvoo, Finland Work Director \u00b7 Writer \u00b7 Documentary filmmaker Studied Philosophy of Religion, Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki Debut feature [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"journal-page","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-247","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278,"href":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/247\/revisions\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurentiuspaulus.woodslopecabin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}