New Initiative To Develop Russian-Nordic Relationships

As part of the Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) parallel industry event Business Square, a delegation of Nordic professionals have been invited to the one day ‘Baltic Event for East' panel (June 19) to explain to their Russian counterparts how to create and improve co-productions between the two regions.

Baltic Event for East which will focus on co-productions between Russia, the Nordic and Baltic countries is organized with Baltic Event in Tallinn and the support from Media International. "It seems natural that Russia, Scandinavia and the Baltic countries try to co-produce more. Our goal is to make it a new trend," said Anna Katchko, (photo) artistic director for MIFF Business Square and EAVE representative in Moscow. "In the last years, some co-productions were made between Russia and Finland since the countries have a lot in common geographically and culturally, but much less is done between the other Scandinavian countries and Russia," says Katchko.

The latest official co-production between Russia and Sweden was the 2009 Swedish film Newsmakers by Anders Banke shot on location in Moscow and in Trollhättan. The film was produced by Moscow-based Tandem Production (founded by Katchko and producer/distributor Sam Klebanov), in co-production with Sweden's Illusion Film. The film had a wide release in Russia and a good international festival career.

For Petri Kemppinen, Head of Production at the Finnish Film Foundation who will explain to his Russian colleagues how Scandinavian films are financed, financing rules in Russia are changing and should enable more Scandinavian producers to access the fast-growing Russian market. One of the most active Finnish producers working with Russian partners is Ilkka Matila (Matila Röhr Productions) who has been involved in four Russian co-productions in recent years. Matila will discuss at MIFF the making of the Russian/Estonian/Finnish film George Ots.

Two Finnish projects looking for Russian partners have been selected for MIFF Co-production Forum: Pekka Lehto's €1.5m comedy Ordinary Capitalist and Peter Lindholm's €2m fantasy thriller The White Reindeer produced by Pauli Pentti (Pet Films). Other Scandinavian professionals expected are Gunnar Carlsson, executive producer for Swedish public broadcaster SVT, and Danish producer Bo Erhardt (Nimbus Film).