Helsinki Finnish Film Affair in Nine Takeaways

Genre thrills and chills dominated the 15th Finnish Film Affair that closed last night, and splattered across various sections of Helsinki’s Love & Anarchy Film Festival and panel sessions.

The tone was set with the opening film “Nightborn” by local genre wiz Hanna Bergholm, the inaugural Nordic Genre Lab, and yesterday’s panels about Nordic genre’s market value and positioning, followed by XYZ Films’ masterclass about the morphing of Tommy Wirkola’s “The Trip” into Hollywood’s “Over Your Dead Body.”

“Genre films and series are definitely on the rise, including in Finland where we do have a history of dark, quirky noirs,” said FFA honcho Lydia Taylerson. “When Claire Willats [Two Magpies Entertainment, former Netflix executive] and Laura Laaksonen [Finnish producer, PR expert] approached us with the idea to create a Nordic Genre Lab and use the FFA as a hub, it felt like perfect timing as we wanted to replace Love & Anarchy’s ‘weird’ section, which was a bit vague as a concept,” she said.

But Nordic fare across all genres – from body horror to kids comedy, dramas and documentaries, showcased at Thursday’s pitch day, played out strongly in Helsinki, based on the positive feedback from industry players such as Mike Runagall, managing director of London-based Altitude Film Sales, who said: “I came eight years ago for a panel. But I now feel that someone from my company should come every year. It’s a real creative hub here,” said the senior sales executive, who plans to track a handful of genre projects.

Searchlight’s Sydney Brumfield, who was in Helsinki for her Nordic Genre Lab juror duty, concurred. “Finnish Film Affair organizers did an excellent job in selecting the projects because the quality was amazing,” she said.

At last night’s FFA closing speech, Pauliina Ståhlberg, head of the festival thanked all participants, mentors of the training programs Nordic Flair and Nordic Genre Lab, and experts who sat on the 12 panels. “The panels have been great! I’ve learned about what an ‘above-the-line liaison’ does, and why producers should hold on to IP and remake rights. We’ve seen so many different genres. We all need different content at different times of our lives. So let’s help each other tell different stories, about different cultures. At Love and Anarchy, we do believe that with film and TV, with love and anarchy we can make the world a better place,” she said.

Here is how FFA unrolled in nine takeaways.

Numbers

A record 630 attendees signed up for FFA, and 220 meetings between 45 different people were facilitated. At the festival, 121 shorts and 136 films from 80 countries played across the festival’s 20 plus sections. Attendance reached 50,000.

New boss in town

On Wednesday Stuba Nikula, the new CEO of the Finnish Film Foundation took the stage and kickstarted the panel sessions. He also sat with Variety and shared good news. On Tuesday, the Finnish government submitted its 2027 budget to Parliament and funding for the local industry via the Finnish Film Foundation should remain stable at €23 million ($26.2 million) a year, he said. Second piece of good news: the industry should soon benefit from much needed extra coin, via the implementation of the EU’s AVMS Directive. Once the law is passed “hopefully within a month,” said Nikula, the money collected from payment obligations for streaming services, set to generate between €3.5 million to €7 million ($4 million to $8 million), will be collected in 2027 and funnelled into the industry in 2028.

Any lesson from Norway?

Finns often look with envy at Norway, a country of equal population size as Finland where film support is threefold and funding is matched by regional and equity investors. Yes, the country has a good funding system on a national and regional level, said the Norwegian Film Institute’s rep Kjetil Omberg at a panel. That said, across the Nordics, “public funding is decreasing, deferrals from producers and partners in post is going up, while actual private money is not flowing,” he said, estimating equity funding at only 1% of overall investment in film across the EU. It’s the industry business model based on single project production in the Nordics that needs to change. “People run from one project to the next but don’t build,” he said, urging indie producers to “be more responsible.” “We have to look at the type of stories we make, who sees them. Because it’s also about who is being reached and how. The audience is key.”

What’s up with EU funding?

The EU’s 35-year-old Media Program comes to an end and audiovisual support will be combined in 2027 with spending for culture, media and civil society under the mega-Agora EU umbrella. It’s now that the industry has to come together and lobby to protect our film infrastructure, urged panellists Hugo Rosak (head of industry at Karlovy Vary) and Julie-Jeanne Regnault (European Producers Club). “Through our training programs, festivals, we contribute to the circulation of films. We do have a solid infrastructure, an eco-system that works, even if sometimes we’re not so good at flagging our success. We need to stick together and make sure the next EU program will be industry-specific to carry the goals and values of EU cinema,” said Rosak.

Lessons from Hollywood

How can indie producers make their IP -and coin – go further? At a panel about global franchises moderated by Variety’s Marta Balaga, experts Danny Cannon (“CSI” franchise, “Gotham”), U.K. director/producer, and U.S.-born Jodi Hildebrand (“Marvel,” “Condé Nast”) shared some tips. To make sure viewers keep watching, do create top-tier pilots or first films within franchises, as this is the world in which stories live and where characters eventually go back to, recommended Cannon and Hildebrand. Also, “don’t hold back when you make a pilot – use everything you have, as you never know if you will get other seasons,” said Cannon, who was also in Helsinki to prepare for the Mediawan Nordic noir series “The Faithful Reader,” based on Finnish author Max Seeck’s novels, which he will direct and executive produce.

Lessons from genre heavyweights

In today’s shifting market and “new normal” post-COVID, you need to build [your business model] on the floor, not the ceiling, and the new baseline is not theatrical, the transactional window, but ‘Pay1’ i.e. streamers, broadcasters, cable TV where consumers pay for content, said genre expert Todd Brown, former XYZ Films head of acquisitions at a panel. “We’ve been told in film that theatrical, box office is the basis for our economics, but this is a complete utter lie,” he claimed, urging producers to follow the money, where the audience is today – especially Gen Z-online. With SVODs becoming AVODs, we’re reverting to the old broadcast model, so do keep the audience engaged as this is what drives ads,” he said.

Producer Camille Gatin (“The Girl With All the Gifts”) advised producers to stay away from deferments and for genre filmmakers to also think of female audiences. “Women are the ones deciding to go to the movies and they love horror, especially young adults.”

“Nightborn” helmer Hanna Bergholm praised the co-production model, while Roar Uthaug (“Troll”) said having made blockbuster genre movies in the Norwegian language (“The Wave”) helped open the doors to Hollywood.

Hit screenings: “Nightborn,” “The Secret Reading Club of Kaboul”

On the heels of their international festival success, Hanna Bergholm’s horror “Nightborn” and Elina Hirvonen and Shakiba Adil’s documentary “The Secret Reading Club of Kabul” were clear standout titles at Love & Anarchy, ahead of their domestic release. Both scooped Best Nordic Film and Impact Film at Tuesday’s FFA’s preamble, the Freya Nordic film and TV awards and equally wooed Love & Anarchy audiences. At the festival’s official screening attended by Adil and Hirvonen, the documentary about Afghan women received a standing ovation and “there was not a dry eye in the audience,” noted festival chief Ståhlberg. The Finnish-Norwegian documentary has launched a pre-Oscar crowdfunding campaign.

Ilja Rautsi at the right place

Back from Austin’s Fantastic film where his “Red Snow” dark comedy world premiered, Ilja Rautsi who also wrote Hanna Bergholm’s “Hatching” and “Nightborn,” said jokingly: “I’m living like in a Monty Python sketch where Michael Palin plays the father who is a playwright and complains to his coal-mining son about attending gala events, saying, you don’t know what real work it!”

About the genre pics wave, he said, “In Finland we have a history of realistic films and fantasy films for kids. In the past 15 years it’s evolved. I’m proud to be part of this change. I’ve I always loved to use fantasy, horror, sci-fi, genre elements to tell character-driven stories in a gripping way, so I’m in the right time at the right place. It’s a great feeling.”

Buzz titles

Among the 38 films and series pitched, besides the FFA winners, standout titles included the Finnish comedy in post-production “The Campers,” Nordic Genre Lab offers “Tick Fever,” “Linden Lane 6,” “Alma,” “Echo Chamber,” “Trespassers” and “Whistler.” Among docs, hot projects were “Mariana’s Lament” and Virpi Suutari’s anticipated “Lonesome Land.”

At the festival, the most popular screenings were “The Samurai and the Prisoner,” “La Bola Negra,” “The History of Concrete,” “The Devils,” “Minotaur,” “Erupcja,” “Arrested Memory,” “No Good Men,” “KitKatClub – Kinks of Berlin” and “Jim Queen.”