28/11/2007

It’s time for Finnish film producers to open a bottle of Salmiakkikossu. Following their three-month strike – ended earlier this month – Minister of Culture and Sport Stefan Wallin announced late last week that an extra €2m coming from state lottery funds will be earmarked for cinema in 2008.

Of this amount, €1.7m will go towards production support and the rest for the digitalisation of small cinemas in the countryside as well as for the production of children’s films.

The decision from the Finnish government is in line with the opinion expressed earlier by the Education and Culture Committee and the Audit Committee of the Parliament – that the lottery funds should be used exclusively to support current cultural and sports activities, instead of covering, among other things, rental costs of cultural bodies.

“The government did the right thing, as expected, so from the point of view of production support, we are getting a bit closer to the rest of the Nordic countries,” commented producer Tero Kaukomaa (Blind Spot Pictures).

The Finnish producers started their historic strike on September 3, when the government failed to keep its promise to increase production funding for 2008 by €1.2m. Now with the extra €1.7m in public funds, the overall budget allocated for film for 2008 will be approximately €14.2m and the Finnish Film Foundation has promised to raise the maximum support per film from €700,000 to €840,000.