08/11/2007

Finnish film producers announced last Tuesday that they are putting an end to the strike they began on September 3.

In an official statement, the 31 Finnish producers on strike (including Aki Kaurismäki, Tero Kaukomaa and Markus Selin) said that discussions with the government have been constructive and that “public support for film production will probably increase in 2008”.

According to the statement: “Although no final promises have been made, the producers trust the Parliament to make the right decisions. They base their trust on the fact that both the Education and Culture Committee and the Audit Committee of the Parliament have expressed their opinion that the Lottery funds (partly used to finance film production) should be used exclusively to support the current cultural and sport activities of the beneficiaries, instead of partly covering, for example, rental costs of cultural bodies, as the government had suggested.

“The Finnish Film Foundation (FFF) has a clear vision about the increase of film support. It has handed out a paper to the Finance Committee’s Sub-committee for Education and Science, stating that film production and distribution should get an additional €4.1m in 2008, and that the government should commit itself to a plan to increase overall film support to €27m by 2011, as stated in the government programme.”

Finnish producers went on strike when the government did not keep its promise to raise the film budget from the current €13.5m to €14.7m in 2008. And their united front, the first ever in the history of Finnish cinema, led to this positive outcome.

Rampe Toivonen from Solar Films said that the producers wanted to end the strike now because many of them did not have the time or money to wait for the Parliament’s final decision in December. “But it is obvious that the producers will get more than they originally demanded,” he said. “On top of everything else, the FFF has promised to raise the financing cap per film to €840,000, which is €140,000 more than before.”