Little Wing director Selma Vilhunen and her prodco Tuffi Films are launching today on Finnish screens her documentary about the teen craze sweeping Finland.

The subculture movement which sees young ‘hobbyists’ (mostly teen girls) ride their home-made hobbyhorses, organise championships and exchange tips on social media, has more than 10,000 followers in Finland and around 5,000 in Sweden.

“This is an underground movement where girls are able to express themselves without adult judgement or supervision,” told producer Venla Hellstedt to nordicfilmandtvnews.com. “Psychologists have said that this is a very positive activity for young people’s development as it instils a sense of worth and belonging. Anybody can join - whatever age, colour, sex - it develops sport and creative skills, and it’s fun! Those hobbyists have a wicked sense of humour!”

Selma Vilhunen’s film which focuses on three hobbyist girls, had its world premiere at the Tampere Film Festival mid-March where it won two awards (Main Prize from the National Competition section and the Risto Jarva Prize).

Tuffi Films who are self-distributing the film domestically, are building on Tampere’s good word of mouth and positive reviews in the press to attract audiences. Tonight, the film crew and hobbyhorses will attend a special screening at Helsinki’s Season Film Festival. Tuffi’s Sanna Kultanen said: “We are using an event-based strategy to release the film and have selected a few towns and cinemas around the country with few screening slots, promoted on social media, especially Instagram where we have gathered more than 3,000 followers over the past month.” The film co-produced by Sweden’s Bauta film will be distributed locally by Folkets Bio.

Hobbyhorse Revolution will have its international premiere at Switzerland’s Vision du Réel Festival on April 23 and its North American premiere at HotDocs’s Magnificent Obsession strand on May 3rd.

Leading international news publications have started picking up on the Hobbyhorse phenomenon:

Wall Street Journal

Evening Standard, London

The Times, London

Hobbyhorse Revolution was supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

Watch the trailer: CLICK HERE.