The board of the Finnish Film Foundation has announced that it has granted a total of €3,352,500 to six fiction features and six documentaries. Three of the films are international minority co-productions, including Making Movies’ Varado by Nicos Argillet and Stèphane Correa (€35,000), Children of the Lowest Heaven by Birgitte Stærmose, with Bufo attached (€35,000), and The Swedish Torpedo [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Frida Kempff, which received €187,500. Klaus Heydemann, of Inland Film Company, is on board the latter. As a reminder, Kempff previously showed her successful psychological horror Knocking [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Frida Kempff
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Other well-known filmmakers also received some love. Pirjo Honkasalo – also behind The 3 Rooms of Melancholia – will now direct Orenda, described as a feature film “about guilt and mercy”, scoring another point for Bufo. While her project was granted €850,000, Tiina Lymi’s highly anticipated period film Stormskerry Maja [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], based on a series of beloved novels and produced by Solar Films, was given €920,000. The filming of the Swedish-language drama has already started in Åland.

Teemu Nikki, awarded at Venice for his touching drama The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Teemu Nikki e Jani Pösö
intervista: Teemu Nikki, Jani Pösö e P…
scheda film], is already hard at work on Death is a Problem for the Living. Produced by It’s Alive Films, this pitch-black comedy about “addiction, friendship and dead bodies” received €175,000. Incidentally, The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic is also vying for the Nordic Council Film Prize (see the news).

Children’s films were noticed as well, with Finders 2 – Pharaohs Ring by Taavi Vartia (also on production duties) and the ingeniously titled Itty Bitty Princess – Adults can go to Hilldiggle! by Lauri Maijala (Helsinki-filmi) getting €150,000 and €775,000, respectively.

Finally, on the documentary front, Arto Halonen’s In the Ballpark of Finland, recently presented at the Helsinki-based industry event Finnish Film Affair (see the news), Ville Suhonen’s Children of War and Peace [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], Iiti Yli-Harja’s animation Oh No, a Mouse! (both Illume productions) and Leena Jääskeläinen’s Making Art in My Dreams (Osuuskunta Animaatiokopla) got €50,000, €80,000, €45,000 and €50,000, respectively. The first of these, produced by Art Films Production, will explore how, in the 1970s, African American basketball players introduced multiculturalism to Finland and how, later, their sons launched a battle for equality.