Following on from last year’s hybrid edition, the 10th Finnish Film Affair was organised both in Helsinki and online. The event was attended by over 400 delegates from 27 countries, with 300 of them on-site.
“It was fantastic that we were able to bring our colleagues from around the world together again for three days. Many of our guests here in Helsinki commented how this was their first industry event in over a year, and you could sense the tangible joy in every one of our events,” said Head of Finnish Film Affair & Nordic Flair Maria Pirkkalainen after the event.
Finnish Film Affair’s Best Documentary Project Award went to Nasrin’s Voice, produced by Image Club. Currently in production and with many details still confidential due to the subject matter, the documentary follows the touching narrative of a young woman who no longer agrees to remain silent. The film is directed by Kaisa Rastimo and produced by Ella Ruohonen, who were both pitching on-scene at FFA.
“The cause is very important and there’s an urgency to the untold story. This female-led documentary draws your attention and will resonate with international audiences” noted the jury, which consisted of Kevin Chan, Head of Acquisitions at MUBI; Will Tizard, CEE Correspondent of Variety, and Elaine Wong, Content Partnerships Manager at Viveport, HTC VIVE.
Sponsored by AVEK respectively, the award is worth €3,000 which will go towards the project’s international marketing.
FINNISH FILM AFFAIR 2021 PITCHES
Alma – Who Am I? by Pamela Tola
With a budget of €395,000 and slated for Autumn 2022 delivery, Alma – Who Am I?, produced by Oskari Huttu of Lucy Loves Drama, tells the story of Finnish musical sensation Alma-Sofia Miettinen. She is a multi-talent who writes songs for major international artists and who performs her own music to massive audiences around the world. She is also a young woman who suffers from mental health problems and who grew up in a socially alienated family with her twin sister and their disabled parents. She had nothing, and now she has the possibility to gain everything, if only she would learn how to live with herself.
“I think we tend to tell stories about famous and talented people who have struggled, or have struggled a lot, and finally they overcome their struggles and became healed,” said director Pamela Tola during her pitch. “But I think that’s not… how it goes in real life. In Alma’s story I want to show that it is possible to be incomplete and complete at the same time, that you can be brilliant in one area, but very unfinished in some other areas. And I think our story is also a very empowering way to show that we are so much more than our surroundings, our past or our problems.”
The Cello by Kira Jääskeläinen
Produced by Oona Saari of Illumine, The Cello will take the audience on a musical voyage through the 20th century. “One day I saved a cello from a waste container. The instrument turned out to be 100 years old. Somehow it had travelled from Saint Petersburg to Copenhagen. During the journey there had been the Russian revolution and two world wars. I couldn’t stop wondering, who had made it? What music had been played on it? Why did it end up alone? I decided to take the cello under my arms and start a journey together,” says director Jääskeläinen in her notes for the project.
“On our voyage through the 20th century, we meet violin makers, musicians, composers and musicologists. Each person can reveal something new about the cello, its background and the historical context,” she adds.
Currently in development, the project is budgeted at €301,854, with a mooted premiere for late 2022, early 2023. The production is looking for co-producers, financing, a sales agent and distribution.
“Our visual style reminds a scrapbook, characters come and go. The locations change: Copenhagen,St. Petersburg, Leipzig…the archival footage sheds light on the historical situation while we see the same places as they are today. In this great puzzle of history, the director and the cello are there to link everything together,” Jääskeläinen explained during her FFA pitch.
“After all, this film is also my journey back to music. I believe things happen for a reason when the cello found me. I had given up the music…Today I play in my own string quartet. For nine years I have done research…our locations are fixed and we have ensured most of our main characters. So now we are ready to embark on our journey.”
Clout Chasers by Anna-Maija Heinonen and Krista Moisio
Currently in development and budgeted at €295,000, Clout Chasers looks at the modern phenomenon and subculture of clout chasing, which entails indulging in anti-social behaviour (theft, drug use, fighting) and then posting it online for everybody to see. The more the participants post, the more ‘clout’ they get. The doc is a modern coming-of-age story that mixes observational material with social media content, as provided by the main characters in the film. Producer Oskar Forstén of Polygraf was at FFA to generate distribution, co-production, festival and finance interest, as well as source a sales agent.
“Clout chasing is, at least for us millennials, a bizarre way to gain popularity among your peers,” said co-director Anna-Maija Heinonen. “The person who goes furthest gets the most clout. Even though clout chasers know the rules of this dangerous game, they forget the price they have to pay when the pranks go too far and they do go too far. Clout Chasersis a traditional coming-of-age story placed in traditional setting. It’s a raw but warming film about youth, friendship and chasing approval at any cost.”
“The main characters Ate and Milan have become the most famous cloud chasers in Finland,” added Krista Moisio. “Ever since he moved out of foster care, Ate has been trying to beat the odds. In seeking approval, he figured out that by posting questionable content, he gets the appreciation and the emotional support he desperately needs. Ate thinks things he’s just having fun, but the game is slowly costing him his future. Milan wanted to become a famous rapper and ..by beating up other rappers, posing with fake guns and posting it all online he did just that, but at what price? He avoided jail once. But to please his fans he his pressured to play the notorious character he has created.”
Homecoming by Suvi West
In Homecoming, as the emotionally broken Sámis finally get back their ancestral heritage (from the Finnish National Museum), the director faces he people’s collective pains and starts to break the outsider’s image of the Sámis, not only for herself, but for the wellbeing of the whole nation. The film is set at a turning point within the museum world. While the Sámis have to redetermine their relationship to identity, the national museums have to deal with their colonialist history. West follows the different stages of the repatriation processes.
The in-development project is produced by Janne Niskala of Vaski Filmi, who is eyeing up a Winter 2022/23 delivery. Budgeted at €292,580, Niskala was looking for sales representation, distribution and festival interest at Finnish Film Affair.
“Even I, as a director, need to confront my inherited pains and uncertainties,” director West said during her pitch. “After meeting these museum objects, I didn’t expect that this journey [would be] so emotional and spiritual when we started to film. Through this repatriation process, we Sámis need to deal with the questions of othering and objectifications. The image of the Sámi has always been determined by outsiders [and not by] Sámis themselves.”
The Lock-in by Chico Pereira
In 1984, 11 miners locked themselves inside the mercury mines of Almadén (Southern Spain) for 11 days to demand better working conditions. 35 years later, an emigrated local filmmaker comes back to post-industrial Almadén with the idea of making a film about the mining strike. What starts as a re-enactment of a past strike turns into a social movement attracting media attention throughout Spain. Tensions arise between participants, the mine management and the filmmakers. And the 11th day is fast approaching…
Kaarle Aho of Making Movies is producing the €400,000 project and was present to explain why co-producers, distributors, financers and sales agents should be looking to get on board. The project is set for completion Winter 2022-23.
The statement of director Periera reads how, “I believe in the power of documentary filmmaking to catalyse new realities into being, not only documenting existing ones. This film offers appealing content with dramatic possibilities and a clear dramatic arch. There will be a sense of drive and momentum as the film progresses. The film will be structured by the passing of the days, the increased engagement of the community, politicians, media, and the tensions related to the transformation of the film re-enactment into a social movement.”
Lynx Man by Juha Suonpää
Lynx Man is described as “a documentary about pensioner Hannu’s entrancing journey towards finding a connection with the Eurasian lynx hiding in the forests. With his trail cameras, Hannu opens a gateway into the Finnish nature and towards a genuine connection with the environment.”
The €475,000 film is produced by Pasi Hakkio of Wacky Tie Films who is looking to complete the film for Spring 2023. He was looking for sales, festival, distribution and finance support at FFA. “The friendship between the lynx and Hannu is a narrative tool to tell a story about biodiversity and the right to life,” he says. “The common voyage of the natural environment and humans calls for a modern shaman, acting as a guide into this new sustainable thinking. The sixth wave of extinction is at hand. As gene technologies develop, there are hopes of reviving already extinct species. There is another possibility, and that is what this film is about…”
In his FFA pitch director Juha Suonpää said: “A hundred years ago, the lynx became extinct in Finland. Six years ago, I met a man who told me he can talk with them. Six years later, after about a hundred film trips, I still haven’t seen any…but this guy has.”
“Hannu is filled with excitement and he sets up forest cameras to see more, and soon the cameras reveal the marvellous life of the forest. And this is the world where Hannu wants to belong. In the first half of the film, we create an excitement, Hannu’s metamorphosis closer to the lynx towards the moment he sees the lynx for the first time. The second half of the film is about deepening dialogue between man and nature,” Suonpää continued.
For Hannu, the camera is a “a beacon and a meeting place between man and other species. We need to create new ways of seeing, a new way of awareness. Time is surrounding out, but we still have hope,” argued Suonpää.
Michael Monroe – The Best Kept Secret in Rock ́n Roll by Pete Eklund
The documentary tells the story of a man who fights ambitiously for his dreams to become the world’s biggest rock star. On this lifelong mission he makes it to the top of the global rock scene. He doesn’t gain huge fame and fortune, but he becomes one of most respected yet least well-known stars – making him the best kept secret in rock ́n roll. Next year Michael turns 60. He could have ended up dead with a needle in his arm but decided to follow his ambitions and continue his mission instead…
“Michael Monroe ́s life-long mission has been rock ́n roll,” says director Pete Eklund. “Our mission is to reveal his incredible story, from ashes to riches, and then ending up losing it all.”
The €335,000 project (currently in production) is produced by Patrik Sigmundt of Kaiho Republic and will be ready for Autumn 2022. At FFA he was looking for sales interest, as well as festivals and finance support.
During his FFA pitch Eklund underlined: “This could be just another documentary of a failed ‘past years’ rock star, struggling with drug problems, living a wild and rebellious life who then changed and found love, God or something else,” he said. “But it isn’t. Michael never gave up and he still hasn’t. Michael has never changed his style or beliefs, neither sold his soul. Not even when the world is changing, [when] he’s ageing and [when] some say rock and roll is dying. Some might consider him a pathetic relic or a has-been who never was. Some might say, ‘stop and give up and start doing something that people at your age do.’ But in the end, what makes a person happy, a life meaningful, full and worth living?”
Power of the People by Mervi Enqvist
“In this film, we are introducing a young Finnish activist. She might end up being a prime minister of Finland one day or even president,” said Mervi Enqvist at the beginning of her FFA pitch.
The documentary follows Finnish Laura Eklund Nhaga’s journey for four years, as she gives her thoughts about living as a racialized person in Finland. It shows her travels to the USA to meet Heather Booth, from the Midwest Academy, to learn about organising and how to bring those teachings into action. Power of the People is a documentary film about personal impact, finding your own voice and learning how to effectively work for change.
“We have followed her for four years now,” Enqvist continued. “And during this time she has grown up to become even much more involved in her issues and in her activism. She is now 25-years-old. So we all talk about activism and we are all concerned of our future but, what do we really do to change things?”
“Because change needs action, and many times it starts from a personal experience of interest,” she continued. “Laura has that personal experience and she also has need to take action…This film is meant to inspire younger generation globally. And that’s why this film is very important and urgent.”
Essi Haukkamaa of Greenlit Productions is producing the €230,000 project with a view to delivery Spring 2022. At FFA she was looking for sales, co-production, finance, festivals and distribution options.”
Nasrin’s Voice, produced by Image Club is currently in production but confidentiality must be observed due to the sensitive subject matter. The documentary presents the touching narrative of a young woman who no longer agrees to remain silent. The film is directed by Kaisa Rastimo and produced by Ella Ruohonen.
