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FESTIVALS Finland

This year’s Love & Anarchy exceeded 60,000 admissions

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- Thomas Bidegain’s Cannes entry, Cowboys, won the Audience Award at the 29th edition of the festival, which ended yesterday after screening 360 films

This year’s Love & Anarchy exceeded 60,000 admissions

After three of the main venues for the Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy closed down, the 29th edition of the event had to spread around the capital, stretching from the Arabia, over Töölö, to the Espoo suburbs. “It was a difficult and very challenging situation,” said artistic director Pekka Lanerva

So after last night’s closing ceremony at the Savoy, with French director Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Mia Hansen-Løve
film profile
]
and Spanish director JA Bayona’s A Monster Calls [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juan Antonio Bayona
film profile
]
, Lanerva thanked the local audiences for adjusting and filling up the new theatres: this year, the festival recorded more than 60,000 admissions, for 500 screenings of 180 features and 180 shorts from all over the world.

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Festival crowd-pleasers included Dutch director Paul Verhoeven’s Elle [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, Finnish director Mika Rättö’s Samurai Rauni, attending Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Cristian Mungiu
interview: Cristian Mungiu
film profile
]
, the American adventure-drama-comedy Swiss Army Man, starring British actor Daniel Radcliffe, and US director Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! Also, British director John Michael McDonagh’s War on Everyone [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
was a sell-out, and British director Terence Davies proved popular: he was in Helsinki with two films (2015’s Sunset Song [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Terence Davies
film profile
]
and 2016’s A Quiet Passion [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) as well as to conduct a master class. The festival’s Audience Award went to French director Thomas Bidegain’s Cannes entry, Cowboys [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
.

This year’s Finnish Film Affair – the festival’s industry sidebar for international buyers (20-23 September) – presented 24 new Finnish works in progress and 21 projects in development; more than 200 local and foreign participants attended the introductions and discussions at the Kinopalatsi Cinema and the meetings at the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel.

“I am particularly excited about the line-ups of new and upcoming films, which have been praised by the foreign buyers. Also, local filmmakers have reported strong international interest in their productions,” said festival and market executive director Sara Norberg. “And I am happy that in spite of the growing number of visitors, we managed to retain the intimate, laid-back atmosphere.” 

Next year’s showcase has been scheduled to unspool from 14–24 September.

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