The privately-owned Finnish company plans to release between 4-6 quality local feature films a year and to become a close ally to Finnish producers.

Aurora Studios is owned by seasoned Finnish entrepreneurs Ari Tolppanen, private equity investor and founder of CapMan and Ari Lahti, founder of the fund management group IceCapital, as well as the major Finnish publishing group Otava. Tolppanen is Chairman of the Board of Directors and member of the Board for Aurora Studios, together with Lahti, Minna Castrén, Literary Director/Executive Director at Otava Publishing Company and Heikki Lehtonen, Otava board member.

The partners in the new venture were previously involved in Aku Louhimies’ mega WW2 movie The Unknown Soldier which sold more than one million admissions in Finland in 2017. Otava Group, Tolppanen and Lahti were co-investors in the €7m film and bought the epic movie’s production outfit The Film Company Finland 2017, before renaming it Aurora Studios and changing its focus from film production to development, financing and distribution of Finnish films. Meanwhile Antti Toiviainen spearheaded the film’s domestic release on behalf of SF Studios and contributed to turning it into the sixth biggest Finnish film of all time.

Aurora Studios will continue to manage the rights of The Unknown Soldier’s feature film and TV versions, while acquiring new local content for distribution both in Finland and in the Nordics.

Joining Toiviainen is Creative Director Roosa Toivonen who has held various jobs in the Finnish film industry, including filmmaker and festival director.

Aurora Studios is the second new major distribution group in the Nordics set to challenge the long-standing pan-Nordic groups Nordisk Film and SF Studios, after Scandinavian Film Funds Distribution, launched in March.

Speaking to nordicfilmandtvnews.com on Wednesday, Toiviainen said Aurora Studios will focus on “high-end quality films with commercial potential.” Asked about the challenge of launching a new distribution venture in a shifting market, even more destabilised by the Covid-19 pandemic, he said: “Aurora Studios can rely on solid financial backers. The challenge won’t be to find the money but to find the right projects that we want to handle.”

He goes on: “Having worked for two decades at SF Studios, I have gained a wide experience in marketing and distribution and feel that Aurora Studios can realistically fill a gap in the market by focusing on the core business: investment in and distribution of Finnish films.  We want to be allies, on-the-ground partners to Finnish producers from an early stage, available 24/7, and follow up all the distribution deals across all windows."

The company has a slate of more than a dozen projects in development or production, based on IPs or original scripts. Those include:

• The Wait (Odotus) by Aku Louhimies, an intimate drama set in the Finnish archipelago, due to start filming in August. The film is a modern version of the 1893 classic novel The Vicar’s Wife by Juhani Aho, co-written by Louhimies and actress Inka Kallén.
• The World’s Most beautiful World (Maailman kaunein sana) to be directed by The Violin Player’s creative team-director Paavo Westerberg and screenwriter Emmi Pesonen based on her own debut novel of the same name, to be published by Otava in the fall 2020 
• an adaptation of author/journalist Ulla-Maija Paavilainen’s book The Biggest of Them is Love (Suurin niistä on rakkaus) about legendary corporate director Kirsti Paakkanen also published by Otava.

Looking ahead, Toiviainen says Aurora Studios will most probably widen its slate to non-Finnish content and expand beyond the core acquisition and distribution activities, even on a Nordic level (see interview with Ari Tolppanen: CLICK HERE). But “right now, our priority is Finnish films,” reiterates the company’s CEO.