Härö’s Dark Christ and Impaled Rektum by Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio are heading the Finnish company’s 2017 production slate.

After their successful collaboration with Härö on his Golden Globe nominated film The Fencer, Making Movies co-founders and producers Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho have signed another two feature projects with the director. Dark Christ set to start production in the fall 2017, will reunite Härö with The Fencer scriptwriter Anna Heinämaa.

The project tells of an elderly art dealer who wants to make his last big deal. When he discovers a heavily under-priced painting named Dark Christ, he decides to borrow all the savings from his grandson in order to leave the art scene with panache. Then everything starts to go wrong.
Nordberg says the project will be shot entirely in Helsinki.

Also on Making Movies' pipeline is the heavy rock comedy Impaled Rektum, to be co-produced with Norway’s Sweet Films. The project written by Aleksi Puranen will start filming in the summer. It’s the story of Turo (25) who wants to lead the worst heavy band ever in Finland, ‘Impaled Rektum’, to the hottest metal festival in Norway. Their journey includes metal music, vomiting, grave robbing, fake vikings and the first ever armed conflict between Finland and Norway!

“The Nordics are the biggest heavy metal countries in the world and in Finland we have the highest number of heavy metal rock bands per capita. Our intention is to tap into the millions of fans not only in Scandinavia but also globally, by releasing the film simultaneously in the cinemas and on a streaming service,’ said Nordberg.

On the documentary side, Making Movies is currently producing for YLE Finnish Angel, about Finland and Finnishness as interpreted through Hugo Simberg’s painting Wounded Angel. The film by French director Jean Michel Roux (Les mille merveilles de l’univers) received support from the Finland 100 programme and will be released domestically at the end of the year.

20th anniversary
The company just celebrated its 20th anniversary and is looking at expanding on the TV drama market while keeping focus on its niche: high quality projects based on strong scripted material, directed by visionary filmmakers. “I believe we’re among the most successful Finnish production companies in terms of prestige as our films tend to travel to 20-30 world festivals. We will continue to focus on feature films while looking at expanding on the TV drama market,” told Nordberg to nordicfilmandtvnews.com.
“TV Drama will just be an extension of what we’re good at: storytelling. We are in negotiations with YLE on a major project but can’t announce it yet.”

In the meantime, Making Movies is concentrating on the national and international distribution of Jussi Hiltunen’s feature debut Law of the Land. The dark modern western is currently playing at number 16 in Finland (nearly 27,000 admissions) with LevelK handling world sales. Next to hit Finnish screens is Tonislav Hristov’s documentary The Good Postman that screened in competition at Sundance and in Göteborg. The film opens on March 24. Cats & Docs handles world sales.