Finland shows the 'gender' way at this year’s Jussi film awards with a majority of female directors vying in top categories including Miia Tervo, whose film Aurora is running in 13 categories.

Unlike the Baftas in the UK or the US Golden Globes where women were shut out of the Best Director race, Finland has seven women associated to three films in the Jussi Best Direction category, as one of the entries is the anthology series Force of Habit for which seven women - Elli Toivoniemi, Kirsikka Saari, Anna Paavilainen, Alli Haapasalo, Reetta Aalto, Jenni Toivoniemi and Miia Tervo - are nominated. The film that tackles gender discrimination, has a total of four nods including Best Film. 

Besides Force of Habit, three other contenders for Best Film of the year are directed by women: Aurora, Miia Tervo’s full length feature debut, which was nominated for this year’s Nordic Council Film Prize, Diva of Finland by rising talent Maria Veijalainen, and the comedy Perfect Christmas by seasoned director Taru Mäkelä.

An equally strong female representation is to be found in the screenwriting category where all three films nominated: Force of Habit, Aurora and One Last Deal by Klaus Härö are written by women.

J-P Valkeapää’s’s drama Dogs Don’t Wear Pants in which actor Pekka Strang plays a grieving widower who finds solace in the arms of a dominatrix (Krista Kosonen) is the second most nominated film after Aurora with nine accolades. The film produced by Helsinki filmi had its world premiere at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and went on winning several international awards including Best Feature at Austin’s Fantastic Fest.

Nordisk Film & TV Fond is associated to five Jussi nominations for One Last Deal and Tonislav Hristov’s documentary Magic Lives of V.

The Jussi awards ceremony will be held March 20, 2020 in Helsinki and will be broadcast on MTV3.

To view the full list of Jussi nominees, CLICK HERE.