Taneli Mustonen’s horror Bodom introduced at the new Frontières Market
- CANNES 2016: The Nordisk Film & TV Fond celebrated its Nordic Genre Boost in Cannes, showing off three films in production and introducing another seven
On the very last day of the Cannes Film Market, Finnish director Taneli Mustonen presented his new horror movie, Bodom [+see also:
trailer
film profile], as a work in progress in the new Frontières Goes to Cannes section, which linked the Cannes International Film Festival with Montreal’s Fantasia Festival and its Frontières International Co-Production Market for the first time.
Mustonen, whose The Reunion [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2015) became the most successful Finnish feature at the domestic box office in more than a decade, scripted Bodom with the film’s producer, Aleksi Hyvärinen (of Don Films); currently in post-production, the slasher stars Mimosa Willamo, Nelly Hirst-Gee, Mikael Gabriel and Santeri Helinheimo, and portrays every camper's worst nightmare, which came true at Lake Bodom in 1960, when four teenagers were stabbed to death while sleeping in their tent.
Bodom was also celebrated at the Nordic Genre Party on the Scandinavian Terrace, where the Nordic region’s largest film event, Helsinki’s Night Visions International Film Festival, and the Finnish Film Foundation joined forces with the Oslo-based Nordisk Film & TV Fond (NFTF), which took the lead in instigating the Nordic Genre Boost in 2015.
Then, the NFTF and its CEO, Petri Kemppinen, selected seven genre projects from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – “an interesting combination of new talents with established producers and experienced directors” – chipping in €24,000 of development funding for each, as well as providing access to two residential workshops with tutoring in script development, marketing and sales. Another seven were selected for this year and were also promoted at the party that gathered genre-film directors and producers from all over the world.
“Bodom is the project that is closest to completion, but another two from the first package are in pre-production,” Kemppinen concluded. Finnish director Elin Grönblom and producer Leila Lyytikäinen’s (of Fisher King Productions) comedy-horror Bloodsuckers has been supported by the Finnish Film Foundation, while Danish director Marie Grathø Sørensen and producers Amalie Lyngbo Hjort and Peter Hyldahl’s (of Beofilm) sci-fi title Teenage Jesus has received funding from the Danish Film Institute.
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