“Lapland’s Tarantino” starts his first feature at Norway’s FilmCamp
- Finnish director Jussi Hiltunen is assembling a stellar cast for Law of the Land, including Swedish actors Malin Buska, Pernilla August and Michael Nyqvist
“We call him Lapland’s Tarantino, and we expect this to become his international breakthrough,” said Finnish producer Kai Nordberg, of Helsinki-based Making Movies, who has started principal photography for award-winning Finnish director Jussi Hiltunen’s first feature, Law of the Land [+see also:
trailer
film profile], at Norwegian regional film centre FilmCamp in the Tromsø region.
Born and based in Rovaniemi, Northern Finland, Hiltunen graduated in Media Studies from the Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences in 2011. He has so far directed four shorts, including All Hallows’ Week (2012), which was selected for the Berlinale and won several awards when it toured the international film-festival circuit.
Scripted by Hiltunen, Law of the Land is described as “an intense drama, a modern western set in the North, where the last mission of a retiring police officer is to prevent his two sons from killing each other”.
Swedish actress Malin Buska (who most recently starred in Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki’s 2015 title The Girl King [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which earned her the Best Actress Award at Montreal), Swedish actress-director Pernilla August and Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist will join the Finnish cast comprising Ville Virtanen, Outi Mäenpää and Antti Holma.
Nordberg will stage the €2.4 million production with Tromsø’s Sweet Films, FilmCamp and Paris’ EZ Films, and the movie is being backed by Finnish pubcaster YLE, the Finnish Film Foundation and the Norwegian Film Institute. Eurimages, the Council of Europe’s co-production fund, has chipped in €400,000 for the film, which Nordisk Film will premiere on 3 February 2017.
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
