28/09/2012 - The Finnish Film Foundation is allocating €1.1 million production funding for three new features by Finnish directors Pirjo Honkasalo, Jan Forsström and Juha Lehtola

After two documentaries, most recently A Diary of an Urban Priest (2009), Finnish director Pirjo Honkasalo (photo) will return to feature film-making with Concrete Night, now shooting for Finnish producers Misha Jaari and Mark Lwoff for Oy Bufo Ab, with Erik Hemmendorf of Sweden's Plattform Produktion.

Based on Finnish author Pirkko Saisio's 1981 novel, scripted by Honkasalo, the film follows the last 24 hours of Ilkka’s freedom before going to prison, which he spends with his 14-year-old brother Simo, who admires him hugely. Concrete Night is one of three new Finnish features that the Finnish Film Foundation will support with a total of €1.1 million production funding.

Finnish writer Jan Forsström will have his directorial debut filming his own Princess of Egypt, about a 27-year-old single mother Marja, who lives with her seven-year-old daughter, Julia - one day she meets Kamaran, her old flame and the father of Julian, who never knew that he had a daughter. Kaarle Aho will produce for Making Movies, and Atlantic Film Finland will release in September 2013.

Another Finnish writer who has previously made documentaries and TV series, Juha Lehtola, is now filming Boy Upside Down for Liisa Penttilä's Edith Film OY. The tragicomedy about an 11-year-old boy whose parents die in a car accident, but refuses to mourn – instead he befriends adults with lies and ends up in a new family – will be launched in the summer of 2013 by Fs Film. The foundation also decided to back Finnish director Miikko Oikkonen's 12x44min TV series Nymphs, about the forbidden love that occurs when a young human male moves into a students' apartment with three seductive and deadly sprites. Matti Halonen produces for Finland's Fisher King Production.