Mäkelä, one of Finland's most bankable directors and long-time collaborator to Solar Films was awarded €550,000 to his new film Pitkäperjantai (‘Good Friday') about Finland's only airplane high-jacking where almost nothing went as planned.
The Helsinki/New York-based Snapper Films (Christmas Story) was awarded €400,000 for the making of Ella and Friends, a children's film based on Timo Parvela's beloved literary characters to be directed by Taneli Mustonen. Vuonna 85 featuring Tampere's ‘manse-rock' youth generation will be directed by writer/director/composer Timo Koivusalo for his production company Artista Filmi. The project was awarded €800,000. The fourth project Juoppohullun päiväkirja (‘Diary of a Crazy Drunk') is based on Juha Vuorinen's best-selling novel of the same name. The project to be directed by Lauri Maijala for Dictator Films was awarded €500,000.
Approved last spring by the Finnish Film Foundation, the 50/50 production scheme has a €5 million total budget for its trial period until the end of 2012. Under the scheme, the Foundation can provide up to 50 % of the total production budget (or a maximum of €800,000) for a project with at least 50 % of the financing already secured. The productions are selected using a point system that evaluates the project's funding and distribution as well as its box office potential. The aim of this experimental production scheme is to speed up the decision-making process for projects that already have other funding in place and to encourage producers to find other sources of financing outside the industry.
Commenting on the new production scheme Juha Wuolijoki, CEO of Snapper Films said: "We think it is a great effort from the Finnish Film Foundation to improve their support mechanism so that it would meet the needs of the production community in Finland. This new scheme serves best the bigger and more established companies that have the capability to develop and produce mainstream pictures, and I think that's just fantastic. This support scheme is not for everyone, and not for every project, but it truly encourages producers to work hard and try to raise as much money from the market as they can."