Adaptation of Oksanen’s Purge among 12 projects at Baltic Event
by Annika Pham
The screen adaptation of Sofi Oksanen’s award-winning novel Purge,, to be produced by Finnish production powerhouse Solar Films, is among 12 projects from nine countries that have been selected for the sixth Baltic Event Co-Production Market in Tallinn, Estonia (December 1-3).
Purge focuses on traumas passed from one generation of Estonian women to the next. The novel was recently awarded the Nordic Council Literary Prize and Pthe rix Fémina in France, and has been translated into 38 languages. The film project will be brought to the screen by Hollywood-based Finnish director Antti Jokinen and Finnish production mogul Markus Selin.
Another Finnish project, Naked Harbor by renowned filmmaker Aku Louhimies (Frozen Land) will be introduced by producers Liisa Penttilä (Edith Film) and Pauli Pentti (First Floor Productions).
The other projects that will be looking for co-financiers in Tallinn are Football for Beginners by acclaimed Estonian documentary filmmaker Jaak Kilmi; Pizzas by well-known Latvian director Laila Pakalnina; Agne Marcinkeviciute's Name in the Dark (Lithuania); Adam Csaszi's Coming Back and Arpad Bogdan's Necromancer, both from Hungary; Bonobo Jingo (Poland) by Slawomir Fabicki (Retrieval [+see also:
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Four other projects will be presented as part of Baltic Event for East, the initiative launched last year to promote collaboration between the Baltic, Scandinavian, Central-Eastern, Russian and Ukrainian audiovisual industries. As usual, Baltic Event will offer industry delegates the opportunity to have a complete overview of the latest films from the region with screenings of finished films and Coming Soon Presentations.
The regional film market, parallel to the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, will unspool right before the European Film Academy awards ceremony in the Estonian capital on December 4, 2010.
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