A solid foundation has been laid down over the past few years. In Finland, viewer ratings for Finnish films in cinemas have remained stable at between 15 and 25 per cent of total annual audiences since 1998. This figure ranks Finland among the top countries in Europe in terms of the popularity of homegrown films. And at international festivals, our success is better than average relative to our population of 5.2 million. Indeed, the number of awards earned by Finnish filmmakers abroad is still increasing from year to year.

Three Rooms of Melancholia by Pirjo Honkasalo / Millennium Films

Mies vailla menneisyyttä (The Man Without a Past, 2002) by Aki Kaurismäki won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and is, thanks to being sold to dozens of countries, the most widely distributed Finnish film of the decade.Melancholian kolme huonetta (Three Rooms of Melancholia, 2004), a documentary by Pirjo Honkasalo about children in Chechnya, has received awards at more than 20 festivals. Our most recent international star is Klaus Härö, whose run of success began with his début film, Näkymätön Elina(Elina: As If I Didn’t Exist, 2002), winning the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

The three aforementioned directors also represent the broadening of styles and genres in Finnish cinema. Expectations have risen enormously thanks to the festival awards won by these and other films; and festivals in turn pave the way to the catalogues of sales companies and commercial distributors. Active producers have created the basis for attracting international funding to Finland and to Finnish film projects.

Wuxia, animation and pioneers in distribution

Many of the international trends in contemporary films have been recycled from the history of cinema. In Finland, the firmer establishment of film production has led to indigenous subjects attracting international interest too.

One of the new additions to the gamut of Finnish cinema in the 2000s is animation. This is due to international networks and technical advances on the one hand, and to solid arts training and Finland’s idiosyncratic visual approach on the other. The last-named aspect has already enjoyed a long run of success in the visual arts, textiles, design, graphic design and comics.

Keisarin salaisuus (The Emperor’s Secret, 2006) by Riina Hyytiä, a children’s film spin-off from a 3D-animated political satire series on TV, boldly opened play in the field of feature-length animated films. It will be followed by Röllin sydän (A Quest For A Heart, 2007) by Pekka Lehtosaari and Lentäjän poika (Way To The Stars, 2007) by Kari Juusonen and Michael Hegner. Trolls and forests in the former, and reindeer and winter in the latter, are very national settings, yet most of the funding for these films came from outside Finland.

Another 2000s trend is genre films, also an echo from the past. A ‘genre film’ is a film immediately identifiable as belonging to a specific genre — such as the 1940s films noirs or spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s, or Kung Fu films of various descriptions.

Jadesoturi (Jade warrior) by A.J. Annila / Blind Spot Pictures

Jadesoturi (Jade Warrior, 2006), a wuxia film (i.e. related to the genre of martial arts cinema) and the first film of A.J. Annila, is a blend of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, and Chinese mythology. Advance sales guaranteed it a market in several countries before it was completed. Jadesoturi also paved the way to China for Finnish films and attracted nearly half a million paying viewers in theatres and on DVD there.

The publishing of short films on portable devices is an interesting development, and the Internet too is expected to play a major role as a distribution channel in the future. The tribute to Star Trek created by Samuli Torssonen and Timo Vuorensola, Star Wreck — In the Pirkinning (2006), is a case in point of the potential for do-it-yourself filmmaking enabled by cheaper technology. A collaborative effort by amateurs and film students, the film attracted a huge number of downloads online and a cult following, but TV and DVD sales subsequently demonstrated that this was a test case in turning the traditional cinema value chain back to front.

There are also special features in the international success of Finnish documentaries. The basis for a strong documentary sector was laid in the 1990s. Very subjective topics related to family and gender developed into universal depictions of humanity. Many films demonstrate that Finns have a close acquaintance with Russia and the Baltic states.

Festival success has spawned a huge amount of interest in Finnish documentary makers among international investors. TV networks have experience in broadcasting documentaries and have hitherto been a major channel for them, but documentaries have also seen a new boom in theatres.

Animations, genre films and network-based and online-based films are new and growing trends in Finland. Their future means of distribution can only be guessed at. Thanks to strong fan bases, such works find extremely satisfied audiences all over the world. In addition to their innovative content, they also involve merchandising with a huge commercial potential.