25/07/2013 - The first project to be backed by new German state programme for international co-productions is the Subzero film starring US actor Samuel L. Jackson

The Finnish Film Foundation’s €670,000 production funding for Finnish director Jalmari Helander’s first English-language feature, Big Game, was topped by the FilmFernsehFonds Bavaria – a new German state fund to promote international co-productions – which started its operations by allocating €1 million for the Finnish-German venture.

"We are particularly pleased with this first project in our special programme, because both shooting and post production will take place in Bavaria", said managing director Klaus Schaefer, of FilmFernsehFonds Bavaria. Principal photography will start in September at Munich’s Bavaria Studios.

Big Game will be produced by Helander’s partner-producer Petri Jokirante (who also co-wrote the script), for their Subzero Film Entertainment shingle, German producer Jens Meurer, of Berlin’s Egoli Tossell Film, in collaboration with Will Clarke and Andy Mayson, of UK’s Altitude Film Entertainment.  

Helander, whose feature debut, the 2010 horror adventure Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jalmari Helander
film profile], won him a Jussi, Finland’s national film award, and Variety’s Piazza Grande Award at the Locarno International Film Festival, is this time matching an uneven couple in the Finnish wilderness.

Oskari, a 13-year-old boy, will pass his manhood test by spending the night in the vast local forest, armed with bow and arrow. That night, same place, US Air Force One is shot down over Finland by terrorists, and Oskari and the American president are left on their own, trying to escape from the radicals closing in on them. The president is played by US actor Samuel L. Jackson.