Nick Cunningham

Produced by Kirsi Mattila of Icebreaker Productions, Mohamed El Aboudi’s project about Finnish immigrants entering the later stages of life was handed the €3000 prize. The 11th edition of Finland’s international industry destination Finnish Film Affair comes to an end on Friday 23 September. The event has so far been attended by close to 500 guests from 22 countries and 3 continents.

In his heartwarming doc short-listed for the Best Doc at the European Film Awards, director Einari Paakkanen introduces us to a cast of Finns for whom karaoke is more than mere entertainment, rather an emotional support mechanism. During Finnish Film Affair producer Marianne Mäkelä of Napafilms pitched the project to the international distribution community.

Director Juha Suonpää discusses his new project, about a man and his search for the elusive Eurasian lynx, with Business Doc Europe. The ancient relationship between humankind and predator “is something that goes paradoxically to the origins of the Finnish mentality, how we came to be here in the north, how we survived here in north,” the filmmaker says.

In her documentary selected for FFA, Elli Rintala profiles forensic scientist Helena Ranta who, back in the late 1990s, led the Finnish research team that conducted independent investigations into evidence of war crimes against the Serbian army in Kosovo, led by Slobodan Milošević. The filmmaker discusses her film with Business Doc Europe.

Academy Award-winning director Laura Poitras will be honored at IDFA this November with the Retrospective and Top 10 programs. Two curated focus programs, Around Masculinity and Playing Reality, were also announced in addition to the IDFA DocLab theme of Nervous Systems. IDFA will take place in person from November 9 to 20 2022.

In Power of the People we follow the extraordinary young Finnish activist and poet Laura Eklund Nhaga as she embarks upon a journey to the US to meet fellow activists in Chicago. She also encounters Heather Booth, leading activate for ‘organization’ and the processes needed to transform words into action. Director Mervi Enqvist discusses her film with Business Doc Europe.

In Iiris Härmä’s latest documentary, two well-meaning environmental scientists travel to the ‘Cradle of Humanity’ in Kenya to reintroduce the culture of storytelling to nomadic tribes people. But they soon find out that the needs, practices and indeed frailties of the local villagers are not so dissimilar to those of people living elsewhere in the world. The filmmaker talks to Business Doc Europe.

In Susanna Helke’s cleverly provocative and often very moving documentary, the beautifully hypnotic sound of Anna-Mari Kähärä’s music plays in poignant counterpoint to the words, comments and confessions posted by carers for the elderly in Finland between 2019 and 2021, and sung by a choir up of fellow, exhausted nurses.

“Finland is known for its dedicated documentary talent, and we want to serve that,” says Head of Finnish Film Affair & Nordic Flair Maria Pirkkalainen. Eight feature documentaries and nine doc projects, as well as a series of debates and masterclasses, will be presented 21-23 September during Finnish Film Affair, the industry event of Helsinki International Film Festival.

Submissions are invited for creative feature-length documentaries, factual series and non-fiction VR and transmedia projects from the CEE region in development, production and post-production for the Platform’s 12th edition (March 24-30, 2023). The event, organized by the Institute of Documentary Film in association with One World Film Festival, will take place at the French Institute in Prague.