Finnish Film Affair Spotlights Five Upcoming Finnish TV Series

As a part of its trade program operating parallel to the Helsinki Movie Pageant — Love & Anarchy, which takes place Sept. 14 – 24, the Finnish Movie Affair is presenting 5 native TV collection at present within the works that might be pitched to potential co-producers, financiers, broadcasters, streaming platforms, gross sales brokers and different worldwide trade reps.

The 5 initiatives might be introduced on Sept. 21 throughout a showcase day of Nordic movies and collection in improvement or manufacturing. This yr marks the primary time that TV exhibits might be pitched alongside function movie initiatives.

“Together with collection is one thing that each the native trade and our worldwide friends have steadily requested from us, and one thing that we at the moment are growing annually,” says Maria Pirkkalainen-Barber, head of Finnish Movie Affair and Nordic Aptitude. “This yr we have been delighted to decide on the 5 initiatives in collaboration with the export initiative Give attention to Finland, and subsequent yr we’re planning on doing an open name to additional help the demand for this.”

The 5 initiatives chosen embody a wide range of themes and genres, from documentary to dramedy to grownup animation, and are backed by a number of the main manufacturing homes in Finland.

“Kona! – Dream Massive, Pitch Arduous” tells the story of Konsta Kurikka, one of many high Finnish pitchers in pesäpallo, Finland’s nationwide sport, which is analogous to baseball. Author-director Lotta-Kaisa Riistakoski follows Kurikka on his quest to turn into the primary Finn to make it to America’s Main Leagues, rising into an idol and experiencing each thrilling wins in addition to bitter disappointments.

The 6 x 28’ documentary collection is produced by Tiina-Mari Pitkänen for Rabbit Movies. Riistakoski says the present was born from what she describes as a strategy of “merely following [her] instinct.” “I had been following Konsta’s profession for years and once I discovered that he’s going to change pesäpallo to baseball, I instantly felt that it’s time to behave,” she says. “I used to be impressed by his capacity to dream massive.”

Documenting the pitcher’s efforts to make it to the Massive Leagues, Riistakoski says she discovered Kurikka to have “such a captivating character.” “He’s bold and passionate and his willingness to place all in is tempting to comply with,” she says. “I consider that his instance encourages us all to chase our personal goals.”

Written and directed by Niklas Lindgren and produced by Max Malka for Endemol Shine Finland, “Supporting Actor” is an 8 x 24’ dramedy that follows Aki Kurki, a well known however temperamental actor with excessive inventive requirements who’s bored with enjoying supporting roles. When a fortune teller breaks the information that Kurki is cursed, the actor units out to find who put a hex on him and why, solely to comprehend that he has a whole lot of burned bridges to cross earlier than he can attain the reality.

Lindgren says the collection was born out of his personal musings concerning the nature of success. “What does it actually imply to succeed? Does succeeding in your private life compensate for the shortage of success in your work life? Why do I obsess about different individuals’s success a lot?” he asks. “I quickly realized that the world of the working actor was probably the most attention-grabbing and versatile place to set the story of ambition, insecurity and seek for which means.”

Endemol Shine’s Malka notes that “Supporting Actor” boasts a “high-concept story” together with a “robust script, actors and cinematic storytelling [that] make it a high quality dramedy internationally.” Banijay Rights is repping the present internationally and searching for distribution offers throughout Finnish Movie Affair.

One other collection being pitched subsequent week in Helsinki is “The Boy Subsequent Door,” a 4 x 56’ drama written by Eva-Maria Koskinen and directed by Hannaleena Hauru. It tells the story of a lady who confronts her childhood love to know why he disappeared mysteriously over 20 years in the past, solely to uncover the stunning secret that he’s interested in underage ladies. Produced by Jussi Rantamäki of “Compartment No. 6” outfit Aamu Movie Firm with backing from Finnish public broadcaster YLE, the present is described as “a mini-series about two households going through the final taboo of our time.”

Koskinen says “The Boy Subsequent Door” is an exploration of “what taboos and secrets and techniques appear like at first look and the way they alienate individuals from themselves and one another,” whereas wanting on the impression on two households of “damaging secrets and techniques” harbored for greater than twenty years. Her purpose is to create a standard, suspense-filled drama “that hooks the viewer and engages her in a taboo subject in a protected means.”

That subject, she argues, has by no means been explored in fairly the identical means earlier than. However Koskinen believes audiences have by no means been extra prepared. “#MeToo confirmed us the essential views of silenced victims. Now with these in thoughts, we’re prepared for tales like ‘The Boy Subsequent Door,’ about how communities are coping with a possible perpetrator,” she says. 

“The Crashing” is billed as a character-driven drama collection with components of crime that explores the human capability for resilience and connection within the face of tragedy. Written and directed by Anna Äärelä and produced by Pilvi Waltzer for Oy Bufo Ab, the 6 x 50’ collection is ready in a small border city in Northern Finland, the place a person armed with a rifle fires a shot at a passing motorist, inflicting a lethal, five-car pile-up. Within the ensuing investigation, the survivors uncover what actually occurred on the crash web site, however every has a cause to cover the reality.

“‘The Crashing’ begins off with a heartbreaking crime, however the aftermath is seen from the attitude of the 4 victims as an alternative of the investigators,” says Äärelä, who explains that she drew inspiration from the thought of “having individuals meet in a spot the place they thought they’d collapse alone.” “The collection handles the extensive spectrum of grief that may embrace anger, contempt, and even laughter. We see friendships and maybe even romantic love being born out of the solitude of getting harm.”

Äärelä says that writing the present “has been difficult, but in addition therapeutic in a means,” including: “Someway bringing these fictional individuals collectively of their hopelessness provides me consolation as effectively.”

“The Whorytale” is a genre-bending grownup animation collection a few middle-aged mythological goddess and two courageous younger ladies becoming a member of forces to struggle oppression. Shifting gears between drama, fantasy, horror and motion, with a thick dose of darkish humor thrown in, it spins into movement when the Olympian goddess Aphrodite by chance boards the fallacious aircraft and finally ends up on the planet of mortals, unaware of the foundations and controls we people place on ladies’s habits and our bodies.

Written by Laura Gustafsson, Malin Nyqvist and Oskari Sipola, the 8 x 30’ collection relies on Gustafsson’s Finnish feminist cult novel “Huorasatu,” printed in 2011. “The Whorytale” is directed by Nyqvist and Sipola, who additionally produces alongside Vesanen for Welhofilmi and Veli Studio.

“The novel our present relies on has turn into a cult basic in Finland, the story resonating particularly with a youthful feminine viewers,” says Sipola. “ historical mythologies by means of a feminist lens, with a great deal of black humor added, entertained us and made us assume, and we really feel it can do the identical as an animated collection. A brand new age requires a brand new mythology, and we really feel we have now simply the precise one. It’s a narrative so darkish it may solely come from the happiest nation on the planet.”

The Finnish Movie Affair runs Sept. 20 – 22.