Solving six cases in Finland, PI Vares is ready for the world
After seating 31% of Finnish audiences for local films last year, Finnish veteran producer Markus Selin’s Vares franchise – six thrillers following the investigations of Turku PI Jussi Vares, from Reijo Mäki’s bestselling novels – will be launched in the European Film Market during the Berlin International Film Festival, which runs between February 9-19.
Nordisk Film Finland has so far released four titles from the six-pack of Vares, most recently Anders Engström’s Vares - The Path of the Righteous Man, which has since January 6 taken 62,000 admissions. In 2011 Engström’s Vares - Kiss of Evil [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Lauri Törhönen’s Vares - The Girls of April and Vares – The Garter Snake sold a total of 372,000 tickets.
Produced by Selin and Jukka Helle, with Finnish commercial broadcaster MTV3 and the city of Turkku, the series centres around a private eye who is a ladies’ man and a hard-drinking pub regular. Based in Turkku on Finland’s south-western coast, he deals with all kinds of cases, from intimate family score-settings to big-time Russian Mafia trouble.
”Mäki’s books are the mostly sold detective stories in Finland, so locally the films have a built-in audience,” Selin explained. ”Internationally we hope they will start a new chapter of Scandinavian thrillers, with a certain Finnish flavour – not much talking, some drinking, like Aki Kaurismäki movies in a world of crime.”
Lensed back-to-back on a 120-day schedule in 2010, the franchise still has two installments to go, Törhönen’s Vares - Gambling Chip and Vares - Tango of Darkness, which will be released in March 16 and May 10, respectively. The international market introduction is handled by Germany’s Global Screeen, the new joint venture of Bavaria Media and Telepool.
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