Finnish Film Affair Offers Its ‘Biggest and Brightest’ Showcase for Nordic Talents

Rebecca Souw “Bogota: City of the Lost,” one of the most expensive Korean films ever made, heads the sales slate presented at Busan by Megabox Plus M, part of Korea’s J Contentree listed company. Crime noir, “Bogota” took 21 months to produce and saw its principal photography start in January 2020 but soon become a victim of COVID. Song Joong Ki (“Space Sweepers”) stars as a young man moving to Colombia with his family for a better life, but he ends up living from hand to mouth. He later goes against all odds to dominate Bogota’s black market. The picture also stars Lee Hee-jun (“The Drug King”) and was directed by Kim Seong-je (“The Unfair”).

K.J. Yossman Jennifer Lawrence will participate in the BFI’s series of Screen Talks at the London Film Festival next month.

Keke Palmer, Machine Gun Kelly, Adam Sandler and more are among the stars set to be honoured at the 2022 Newport Beach Film Festival.

When September rolls around, it means one thing for many of the top filmmakers in the world – time to hit the road. Venice, Telluride and Toronto come in rapid succession, to the point of overlapping. But for documentary filmmakers eager to showcase their work, there’s another important stop to make in September: the Camden International Film Festival in mid-coast Maine.

Christopher Vourlias Finnish director Katja Gauriloff won the top prize this week at the Finnish Film Affair’s showcase of fiction works in progress for “Je’vida,” an intimate historical drama that is the first film ever shot in the Skolt Sámi language. The film centers on Iida, an elderly Skolt Sámi woman who finds herself in the process of selling her family’s old house and land while keeping her cultural heritage secret from her niece. It’s the story of a woman who has abandoned her past under the pressures of assimilation, weaving across three different historical eras to examine the fate of Finland’s Indigenous peoples in the post-war period.

Christopher Vourlias The Finnish Film Affair, an annual industry event running parallel to the Helsinki International Film Festival, handed its top prize Thursday night to “Je’vida,” a historical drama about memory, survival and personal growth from director Katja Gauriloff. “Je’vida” was one of seven fiction feature works in progress that were pitched to an audience of industry guests in Helsinki on Sept. 22, during the Finnish Film Affair’s showcase of local and regional projects. The jury noted that the winning film “is a story that needs to be told, with real potential to become relatable globally. The presentation and cinematography felt personal, beautiful and visually striking.”

Christopher Vourlias The Nordic screen industries are riding a tide of recent success, from Joachim Trier’s dual Oscar-nominated “The Worst Person in the World” (Norway), and Juho Kuosmanen’s Cannes prize winner “Compartment No. 6” (Finland), to Apple TV’s hit Norwegian crime drama “Exit.” But the Nordics have a ways to go on diversity and inclusion and can do more to support emerging talents — including taking a more mindful approach toward how on-set practices can create an unhealthy work environment. Those were the key takeaways of a panel discussion on Sept. 21 at the Finnish Film Affair, the industry arm of the Helsinki International Film Festival — Love & Anarchy. Moderated by Finnish TV presenter Andrea Reuter, the event brought together three up-and-coming film professionals from Nordic countries to discuss the hopes and challenges for the next generation of filmmakers from the region.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent David Zucker and Pat Proft, the veteran American filmmakers behind cult comedy franchises including “The Naked Gun” and “Airplane!,” are set to executive produce a Nordic Noir comedy spoof series called “NoPoFo.” The anthology series is being produced by lkkas’ Creative Studio, a recently-launched Finnish company. BBC Studios Nordics has come on board as a co-producer. Billed as “Nordic Noir meets ‘Police Squad!,‘” the 10-part series follows three elite agents from the Nordic Police Force (NoPoFo) who are tasked with solving the sort of murders that Nordic psychopaths do so well. Each half-hour episode is set in a different Nordic country and features a different cast of supporting characters, including a serial killer who only murders bad heavy rock bands, and an Instagram obsessive who creates ice sculptures out of his victims.

Naman Ramachandran Blue Finch Films has boarded international sales on European genre titles, Scandinavian thriller “Good Boy” and found footage film “Stéphane,” ahead of their world premieres at Beyond Fest. “Good Boy,” which delves into the perils of the modern dating world, follows Sigrid who thinks she’s met the perfect match in Christian until she comes to find out that he lives with a man who acts like his pet dog. French thriller “Stéphane,” a new take on the found footage genre, follows Timothée, as he documents his time with the larger-than-life, and almost unbelievable character that he meets whilst shooting a short film. As time goes on their jovial and eccentric talks become something far more sinister.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent After “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen will return to the French capital for his 50th movie which he’s described as a “poisonous romantic thriller” with a pair of French stars, Valerie Lemercier (“Aline”) and Niels Schneider (“Love Affair(s))”. The untitled film, the plot of which is being kept under wraps, will start filming next month and will be entirely in French with a budget in the $10-million range. Allen has described the film to be similar to “Match Point,” in that it would be “exciting, dramatic and also very sinister.”  Allen sparked headlines earlier this week after Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia ran a story reporting that the New York-based filmmaker had told them he was planning on retiring. Allen’s representative then issued a statement saying that the director had “no intention of retiring.”

Marta Balaga Finland’s Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture (AVEK) and Finnish Cultural Foundation are launching Kehittämö – Talent Development Lab, Variety has learned exclusively. Described as Finland’s first audiovisual development program, it will provide aspiring creators with financial support – €55,000 each, bringing the yearly budget up to half a million – and mentoring from international experts, including Karol Griffiths, who has collaborated with the Coen brothers, Gitte Hansen and Alex Szalat, the head of Docs Up Fund. “[It will allow us to] bring high quality fiction and documentary films, media artworks and other audiovisual works to the culture-loving audience. AVEK has excellent understanding and wide networks in the sector and working with them will bring added value to the Cultural Foundation’s work,” says director of cultural affairs Juhana Lassila.

Marta Balaga LevelK continues to terrify international distributors with Finnish horror “The Knocking,” directed by Max Seeck and Joonas Pajunen. The film has now been sold to over 70 countries, Variety has learned, with the company sealing further deals in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Alamode Film), Latin America (Gussi), CIS (Capella Film), France (KMBO), Indonesia (PT. Falcon) and Taiwan (AV-Jet International Media). “We have been looking at many Nordic projects, especially the Finnish ones. We definitely see a shift in not just more genre projects emerging, but also in the subjects and the creativity,” says CEO Tine Klint.

Christopher Vourlias Five years ago, the Finnish Film Affair launched the first edition of its Nordic Flair training program, an initiative designed to offer career development for film professionals from across the Nordic region that takes place parallel to the Helsinki International Film Festival — Love & Anarchy. This year’s event focuses on sales agents, distributors, buyers and broadcast commissioners working in one or more of the Nordic countries and is designed to offer participants the tools to innovate new sales and distribution models, scout emerging Nordic filmmaking talent and lead their professional teams through challenging times. “There are many Nordic talents working internationally behind the scenes in the business of film, and with the focus this year, we want to highlight that,” says Finnish Film Affair director Maria Pirkklainen, noting that “training opportunities have been scarce for this group in general.”

Brad Pitt has unveiled his debut sculptures at a Finnish art gallery, alongside Australian musician Nick Cave.On Saturday (September 17), the actor presented his first-ever public art display at the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere, the third-largest city in Finland. The presentation was part of a larger exhibition by British artist Thomas Houseago.Pitt’s nine works in the show included a moulded plaster panel “depicting a gunfight” and a series of house-shaped sculptures that have been fired upon with different types of ammunition.Meanwhile, Cave presented a series of ceramic figurines depicting “the life of the Devil in 17 stations”, reflecting his life-long interests in religion and mythology.“For Nick and I this is a new world and our first entry.

Christopher Vourlias The Finnish Film Affair, a showcase for new films from the host country and the Nordics, will for the first time feature TV dramas at this year’s event, which runs parallel to the Helsinki International Film Festival — Love & Anarchy (HIFF). Alongside the 26 feature film and documentary projects being presented to industry guests during an onstage event on Sept. 22 will be a curated selection of four TV drama series from Finland. “This is something that both the local industry and our international guests have frequently requested from us,” said Maria Pirkkalainen, director of Finnish Film Affair. “We already piloted highlighting a few selected Finnish TV series in 2019 to great feedback and feel like now is the right time to continue this, especially with a record number of international guests joining us here in Helsinki.”

Seventy-five-year-old Celia Fenwick has spoken of the “amazing feeling” of plunging from 10,000 feet during her daring tandem skydive for charity.