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FUNDING Finland

Finnish support for four films and two TV series

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- The Finnish Film Foundation is backing new features by Finnish directors Aleksi Salmenperä (The Mine) and Lauri Nurkse (Greetings from Moscow)

Finnish support for four films and two TV series
Director Lauri Nurkse (© MTV oy/Juulia Jaulimo)

After five years shooting TV series and a documentary, Alcan Highway, Finnish director Aleksi Salmenperä will return to feature filmmaking with The Mine [+see also:
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, “the story of a great plan and what lies beneath it”, scripted by Pekko Pesonen.

Currently shooting for Miia Haavisto and Helsinki-Filmi, with Finnish pubcaster YLE, and set to be released domestically by Nordisk Film, it will be supported by the Finnish Film Foundation as part of a €1.9 million package that includes two features, two minority co-productions and two TV series.

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Finnish actor-director Lauri Nurkse will shortly get the cameras rolling for Greetings from Moscow, a film about the foiled assassination attempt on Russia's new, liberal president during a state visit to Finland. Finnish actors Samuli Edelmann and Ville Haapasalo star in Mika Ripatti and Seppo Vesiluoma's thriller, which will be staged by Zodiak Finland with the MTV3 television channel, for Nordisk Film to release domestically.

Croatian filmmaker Rade Serbedzija will direct The Liberation of Skopje, for Macedonia's Partysans Dooel and Finland's Art Films. In Dusan Jovanovic and Serbedzija's script, the harsh realities of war in Skopje, which the Germans and their Bulgarian allies occupied in 1942, are seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy.

When the container ship HS Discoverer arrives in Antwerp, the dockworkers refuse to unload it because of a disease on board. The captain's problems are described in Deadweight [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, German director Axel Koenzen's feature from Horst Markgraf's story, produced by Germany's Rohfilm and Finland's Bufo.

The foundation also chipped in for two children's television series: Gigglebug by Finland's Joonas Utti, from Anttu Harlin and Gigglebug Entertainment, with ten European stations involved; and Metsämarja Aittokoski and Antti Aittokoski's Pikkuli, from Sun in Eye Productions, backed by six channels.

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