03/07/2007

Jouko Aaltonen, behind last year’s award-winning documentary Revolution, has just been awarded €163,000 from the Finnish Film Foundation (FFF) for his new musical documentary Punksters & Youngsters.

Revolution won a Jussi (top Finnish film award) for Best Documentary last year and became the biggest theatrical success for a Finnish documentary at home since the 1980s (over 13,000 admissions).

Writer/director/producer Aaltonen’s new documentary will focus on punk rock, and in particular on the pioneering group Pelle Miljoona. The €310,500 project is produced by Aaltonen’s partner in Illume Ltd, Pertti Vaijalainen, with support from Finnish broadcaster YLE. Sandrew Metronome will handle domestic distribution in February 2008.

The FFF also allocated a €550,000 grant towards Hanna Maylett’s new feature film Indigo, starring Jorma Tommila. Based on a script by Tarja Kylmä, the film tells the story of Taru, who lives a pleasant life on a horse farm with her husband Harri and her 13 year-old stepdaughter Ninni. Everything changes when Ninni is injured in an accident with a horse and Taru asks Ninni’s biological mother Eve to come back to look after her daughter.

Produced by Kinotar with support from YLE, Indigo will start filming next autumn. Nordisk Film will handle domestic distribution in the autumn 2008.

In its previous round of support, the FFF awarded a total €980,000 to three feature films: Solar Films’ horror film Dark Floors: The Lordi Motion Picture, currently in its last week of shooting, was awarded €300,000; the €1.2m MRP Matila Röhr Production The Novelist (Päätalo) by Hanu Kahakorpi was awarded €280,000; and the children’s film Risto Rapper by Mari Rantasila, produced by Kinostar, received €400,000 towards its €1.1m budget. All three projects will be distributed domestically and internationally by Nordisk Film.