Finnish Tale of the Sleeping Giants sells nearly 12,000 tickets in previews

Marko Röhr’s nature movie will be launched internationally by Earth and Deep Blue producer Sophokles Tasioulis later this year.

MRP Matila Röhr Production’s hymn to the Arctic’s wilderness and natural beauties Tale of the Sleeping Giants (Tunturin tarina) is a tale of hope under the current pandemic.

The third standalone nature movie after the hits Tale of a Forest (over 90,000 admissions in 2013) and Tale of a Lake (biggest Finnish documentary with nearly 200,000 admissions in 2016) is set to launch nationally March 12.

But already now, the film is on top of the local chart with 11,828 admissions, only from preview-screenings, in a market running at 3% of its normal capacity, as the 10-50 people per screen limit has forced cinemas in all the big urban areas of Finland to close. The results are all the more impressive as Nordisk Film’s marketing campaign hasn’t even started.

“Under these circumstances, the success of the previews for Tale of the Sleeping Giants seems like a miracle,” said producer and filmmaker Marko Röhr adding: “I don’t know if I should be happy or cry! People need culture and cinemas for their health. Let’s hope this [situation] is over soon.”

Filmed over three years in Lapland’s wilderness, Tale of the Sleeping Giants is based on writer Antti Tuuri’s vision of fells as sleeping giants. Co-written by Turri and Röhr, it’s a mythical journey that takes us back three billion years, when the first mountains or fells were born and slowly moved up north to Lapland. The film features nature photography and the Arctic region’s rare species including wolverines, weasels, bears, humpback whales among others.

“This is not a documentary, but pure drama, with a fictional story about the oldest myths from human kind, which is why it has received support from the Finnish Film Foundation’s drama department,” underlined Röhr. The film has also received support from pubcaster Yle and local streamer Elisa Viihde.

Following the film’s national release, the film will launch internationally later this year or early 2022, thanks to a recent partnership with wildlife and natural history film specialist Sophokles Tasioulis of Berlin-based Sophisticated Films. An expert in creating major events around nature documentaries, Tasioulis worked on Terence Malick’s Voyage of Time and BBC’s Deep Blue as well as Earth, which grossed about $130 million worldwide. Röhr’s long-time friend will serve as associate producer on Tale of the Sleeping Giants, in charge of marketing and sales outside Finland.

“The two first ‘Tales’ films about Finnish lakes and forests were more local; they did travel well [via sales agent LevelK], but Tale of the Sleeping Giants was always meant for a larger international audience story-wise,” explained Röhr.

The producer and filmmaker who has regained full rights control over Tale of a Forest and Tale of a Lake, will work alongside Tasioulis on the ‘tale trilogy’s distribution across all platforms outside Finland, including in the rest of the Nordics.

“Nature documentaries have a huge appeal on screen,” said Tasioulis who is confident that the films will attract not only traditional cinemagoers but also the green-conscious younger generations.