Over 400 on-site attendees including 120 foreign buyers, programmers, sellers and journalists have signed up for the Helsinki Int’l Film Festival’s industry showcase.

So far 21 top programmers notably from Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, 20 foreign buyers including MUBI, Curzon in the UK, Wild Bunch, Mediawan from France, and 24 sales reps (of which nearly half from France) have confirmed their attendance at the Finnish Film Affair (September 21-23).

“The interest of international film companies in Finland has grown year on year and has been enormous this year. It's great to be able to showcase Helsinki and the Nordic industry to such a great group of guests, especially at such a busy and competitive time as September,” says Head of Finnish Film Affair & Nordic Flair Maria Pirkkalainen.

Keeping at the forefront the international potential of the upcoming Finnish and Nordic projects, Pirkkalainen said the line-up of 28 titles in development, production and post selected this year, was “pre-vetted by a team of senior international professionals, and most are available for sales”. In terms of gender, 54% of projects are directed by women.

Among the six Finnish fiction projects in development are Heavy Trip: Harder, Faster, Louder, sequel to the 2018 heavy metal comedy sleeper, sold by LevelK to a raft of territories on the heels of its successful launch at SXSW. Jukka Vidgren and Juuso laatio are directing again for Making Movies.

Aurora’s Miia Tervo will be pitching her new drama comedy The Missile, and Teppo Airaksinen (Special Jury Distinction in Cannes for his short film The Ceiling) the project A Friend.

Delegates will be invited to discover sneak-peeks of seven Finnish titles in progress, including three high-profile family films: Snot and Splash by Teemu Nikki (The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic, Mister8), the animated Niko-Beyond the Northern Lights sequel to the 2008 hit Niko-All the Way to the Stars and Arnold Cautious and the Happiness Stone starring Mikko Nousiainen (Arctic Circle).

Rising talent Kaisa El Ramly (see separate story: CLICK HERE) will also introduce clips from her feature debut Getaways & Dreams produced by Inland Film Company.

El Ramly’s film has also been picked as the Finnish entry for the curated Nordic Selection, showcasing some of the most anticipated first and second features from each Nordic nation.

Norway and Sweden are coming with two genre projects from promising directors, with a stellar Scandi cast attached. The Worst Person the World’s Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie are toplining the cast of Norway’s Handling the Undead by Thea Hvistendahl (The Monkey and the Mouth), written by Swedish horror king John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In). Norway’s Einar Film and Zentropa Sweden are co-producing, with TrustNordisk handling sales.

Meanwhile Magnus Krepper (Queen of Hearts) and Ardalan Esmaili (The Charmer) co-star in Sweden’s Hunters on a White Field by Sarah Gyllenstierna who started her career in New York as AD to Spike Lee. The suspense about a hunting weekend that goes wrong is produced by MostAlice Film.

The Danish entry in the Nordic Selection is the comedy Viktor vs the World by Christian Athoff (see separate story: CLICK HERE) produced by up and coming Hyæne Film, and Iceland is coming with Natatorium by Helena Stefánsdóttir. The family drama is produced by Bjartsýn Films, in co-production with Silfurskjár, Finland’s Tekele Productions, and Scanbox Productions.

Within non-fiction, projects in progress and development take in Helena Hyvärinen’s Start Me Up (Kinocompany), set in the Finnish world of start-ups, My Ukraine (MADE) by Finnish cellist and filmmaker of Ukrainian origin, and Respect (Tuffi Films) by Milka-Liina Moilanen and Eveliina Pasanen.

Still to be announced are four Finnish TV dramas in development, and industry training scheme Nordic Flair.

This year’s industry panels will focus on the new generation of filmmakers - a session co-organised by Nordisk Film & TV Fond as part of its ‘20 Something’ theme year, theatrical distribution in the Nordics, sustainable leadership and co-producing, with a focus on Germany.

The 11th Finnish Film Affair will open with the screening of Mikko Myllylahti’s debut The Woodcutter Story.

The 35th Helsinki Film Festival-Love & Anarchy will unspool September 15-25.