What is it to be a purebred pedigree dog by breed association standards – a status symbol coveted by humans and bred sick within a narrow gene pool? What is it to be a mixed-breed mutt, a mongrel, a bastard, a creature born of random desire and devoid of an intellectual idea? What is it to be a pedigree dog wagging its tail at a dog show, unconsciously competing for judges’ (taste) points? What is it to be an artist who is averse to competition in the world of art and who is conscious about competing for the (taste) points of the judges? What is it to be Finnish-Swedish, Finnish or a mixture of the two, and do questions of identity or human dignity have anything to do with dogs?

In her experimental documentary Underdog, Marjo Levlin continues a series of works in which everyday observations of the coexistence of dogs and humans, in this case made a decade ago, form the theme around which the bilingual essay film is built, combining with her previous work on topics such as migration, race biology and the relationship between animals and humans.