‘Risky,’ ‘Brave’ and Ready for Change: Young Nordic Filmmakers Face the Future at Finnish Film Affair

Ed Meza @edmezavar U.S. streaming service Topic has inked an exclusive U.S. and Canadian rights deal with Germany’s Beta Film for four European crime series ahead of this year’s Mipcom TV programming mart in Cannes. Dedicated to crime and suspense, Topic, part of First Look Entertainment, picked up the third season of critically acclaimed Austrian-German series “Pagan Peak”; Finnish title “Helsinki Syndrome”; “Silent Road” from Greece; and Croatian-Ukrainian co-production “The Silence.” The agreement also includes renewals of Italian political thriller “1992” and follow-up seasons “1993” and “1994.” Described as Italy’s “House Of Cards,” the show  examines how Italian politics were shaken to the core by a major criminal investigation against widespread corruption in the 1990s.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Future Laobans,” a project directed by Maung Sun and produced by Maung Sun and Ma Aeint, claimed the Busan Prize, the top award at the Asian Project Market, on Tuesday. The awards were made at an event held at the Paradise Hotel in Busan’s Haeundae district at the end of three days of quick-fire meetings between producers and directors and an array of potential co-producers, financiers and distributors. Organizers said that they put together 705 such one-on-one meetings. The CJ ENM Award went to Indonesia’ “Gaspar,” to be directed by Yosep Anggi Noen and produced by Yulia Evina Bhara and Cristian Imanueli.

Newen Studios has pushed into the Scandinavian scripted market with the acquisition of a majority stake in Nordic film and TV company Anagram.

Manori Ravindran International Editor The London Film Festival has revealed its jury line-up for this year’s awards. The Official Competition jury is led by “Power of the Dog” and “Cold War” producer Tanya Seghatchian (pictured), while the First Feature Competition (Sutherland Award) jury will be headed up by director and actor Nana Mensah whose directorial debut “Queen of Glory” won the Best New Narrative Director prize at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. Elsewhere, Italian filmmaker Roberto Minervini will lead the jury selecting the winner of the Grierson Award for Best Documentary after winning the award in 2018 for his film “What You Gonna Do When the World’s On Fire.”

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.

Colombian filmmaker Laura Mora has clinched the Golden Shell in the main competition of the 70th San Sebastian Film Festival with her latest feature The Kings of the World (Los reyes del mundo).

Manchester City are attempting to win a third consecutive Premier League title, but which celebrities will be supporting Pep Guardiola’s side along the way?The Sky Blues have enjoyed a fine start to the campaign after a busy summer of change. Raheem Sterling, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Jesus and club legend Fernandinho left Eastlands with the in-form Erling Haaland, Kalvin Phillips, Stefan Ortega, Julian Alvarez, Sergio Gomez and Manuel Akanji arriving in their stead.

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.”

Nick Frost and Lena Headey first synced up in the 2019 wrestling biopic “Fighting With My Family.” Now, Deadline reports, they’ll do so again but in a much different kind of movie: as a couple fending off a serial killer on a remote island with a dark past, and where the locals have no interest in helping them escape. READ MORE: Lena Headey’s Cut ‘Thor: Love And Thunder’ Role Revealed In New Lawsuit The two stars will start shooting “Svalta” in Finland next year.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “The Worst Person in the World” actor Anders Danielsen Lie and Gard B. Eidsvold (“Wisting”) are set to headline Erik Poppe’s “Quisling.” The film charts the last days of Vidkun Quisling, the former Prime Minister of Norway who was a notorious Nazi collaborator during World War II. The project also comprises a TV series which has been commissioned by TV2. Danielsen Lie will play the priest Peder Olsen who acted as Quisling’s counselor in prison until he was executed on Oct. 24, 1945. Set to start shooting this week, the film is produced by Paradox, SF Studios’ Norwegian production company.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Zentropa Entertainments has unveiled the full cast of Nikolaj Arcel’s new epic historical drama “The Bastard” (previously known as the working title “King’s Land”). The movie has just started shooting.  Along with Mads Mikkelsen and Amanda Collin (“Raised by Wolves”), the movie will star Simon Bennebjerg (“Borgen”) who will play the Frederik de Schinkel, the local landowner and nemesis to Mads Mikkelsen’s character Ludvig Kahlen. Norwegian actress Kristine Kujath Thorp (“Ninjababy,” “Sick of Myself”) will play Frederik de Schinkel’s cousin Edel Helene, trapped in a deadly game between Shinkel and Kahlen of power and love. The cast also includes European Shooting Star winner Gustav Lindh (“Riders of Justice”) who will play pastor Anton Eklund, Kahlen’s unlikely ally.Other cast members include Jakob Lohmann (“Riders of Justice”), Morten Hee Andersen (“Ride Upon the Storm”), Magnus Krepper (“Queen of Hearts”) and Felix Kramer (“Dark”), among others. Believed to be Zentropa’s biggest feature films in years , the $8-million budget feature has already pre-sold to the U.S. (Magnolia Pictures), Germany (PLAION PICTURES), France (The Jokers Films), Benelux (September Films) and Hungary (Vertigo Media).

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.

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 As the Finnish Film Affair embarks on the start of its second decade, the organizers of the annual industry event, which runs parallel to the Helsinki International Film Festival — Love & Anarchy, can both reflect on 10 years of success and look ahead for ways to continue to serve both the Finnish and the Nordic film industries. “Finnish Film Affair started in 2012 with 240 participants. This year, for our 11th edition, we have nearly 500 delegates attending from over 20 countries, with a third of them being international guests and buyers,” Finnish Film Affair director Maria Pirkkalainen told Variety on the eve of the event, which runs from Sept. 21 – 23.

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.