News

Overview of the nine new Finnish documentary projects were pitched during the 11th Finnish Film Affair which concluded 23 Sept in Helsinki. The top prize of €3000 was won by Mohamed El Aboudi (director and producer) and producer Kirsi Mattila for The Last Chapter. Read on for an overview of this and the other eight projects.

A new initiative in 2022 is the DOK Archive Market during which representatives from the leading European archives and footage libraries will present their collections, licensing costs and access modalities. Additional programme themes include a Ukrainian platform presented in association with Docudays UA and focuses on diversity and representation in the film industry.

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.

Stories about a return to the homeland to seek fortune and happiness are familiar, but Golden Land manages to offer something generous and gently compassionate to the canon. While drama and darkness lurk in the background (and certainly have an influence on proceedings) the film is permeated with reflections on family and support as it tells the story of a Finnish family who return to Somaliland to follow their dreams.

There were doubts that the 33rd Nordisk Panorama Film Festival would happen at all. Last year, when the Nordic Council of Ministers decided to cut all its funding, the event was left suddenly in very real jeopardy. However, speaking to BDE on the opening day of this year’s festival (22-27 September), Exec Director Anita Reher hailed the efforts of film institutes across the region to keep the Panorama going.

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 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.

The festival programme will offer the ‘largest showcase of Filipino cinema in Europe,’ a reflection on Russian aggression in Ukraine and war as a theme, as well as new works by Armenian filmmaking legend Artavazd Peleshyan and Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa. Ji.hlava’s Inspiration Forum’s discussions will revolve around freedom, technology, the theory of degrowth and the situation in Ukraine.