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The feature recently won best Irish film at the Dublin International Film Festival.

Germany’s Global Screen has sold the North American rights on Finnish filmmaker Klaus Härö’s English-language debut and Toronto International Film Festival premiere My Sailor, My Love to Music Box Films.

It stars James Cosmo, Bríd Brennan and Catherine Walkera, and follows a retired sailor and widower who falls in love with his home help. His adult daughter disapproves and feels she is losing the father she never had.

My Sailor, My Love has just been released in the UK and Ireland by Signature and will...

Theatrical release planned for Toronto Contemporary World Cinema selection.

Germany’s Global Screen has closed a first major deal with Signature for UK & Ireland rights to Klaus Härö’s English-language debut and TIFF premiere My Sailor, My Love.

Signature plans an theatrical release early this year on the story starring James Cosmo, Bríd Brennan and Catherine Walker about a retired sailor and widower who falls in love with his home help. His adult daughter disapproves and feels she is losing the father she never had.

Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho for Making Movies Oy (Finland) and David Collins...

When he began working on his latest documentary, “The Last Seagull,” acclaimed Bulgarian filmmaker Tonislav Hristov (“The Good Postman”) set himself a seemingly simple task: to follow the last of the dying breed of male escorts who, since the communist era, have spent their summers seducing foreign women in resort towns along the Black Sea.

That plan went astray, however, when real-world events intervened: first the coronavirus pandemic, which grounded flights and shuttered the very resorts where those escorts plied their trade; then the war in Ukraine, which impacted “The Last Seagull” in unexpected ways.

“This is what’s nice, but also scary, about documentaries,” Hristov told Variety after the film’s world premiere at the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival. “You never know what’s going to happen next.”

“The Last Seagull” is the director’s eighth documentary feature, following films such as Sundance and Berlinale selection “The Magic Life...

Romance has grossed more than Euros 618,000 in three weeks through Nordisk Film.

Global Screen has licensed further key territories on Klaus Haro’s English-language debut My Sailor, My Love, which recently opened top of the box office in Finland and will continue selling at the AFM.

Rights have gone to Kismet for Australia and New Zealand and Twelve Oaks for Spain following a recent deal announced in Screen with Signature for the UK and Ireland. Global Screen’s SVP international sales and acquisitions Klaus Rasmussen is engaged in ongoing conversations for the US and further territories.

Haro’s (The Fencers...

Buyer plans early 2023 theatrical release.

Germany’s Global Screen has reported a strong response in Toronto to Klaus Haro’s TIFF Contemporary World Cinema selection My Sailor, My Love and has struck a deal with Signature for UK & Ireland.

Härö’s English-language debut premiered last Friday (September 9) and stars James Cosmo and Bríd Brennan as a retired sea captain and the home help he falls for, much to the chagrin of his grown-up daughter who feels she has never truly known her father. Catherine Walker also stars.

Jimmy Karlsson and Kirsi Wikman wrote the screenplay. Haro’s 2015 Finnish drama The Fencer...

Finnish director Klaus Härö makes his English-language debut with Toronto Film Festival premiere “My Sailor, My Love.” A gentle drama about a retired sea captain falling in love one last time will be spotlighted at the Helsinki-based event Finnish Film Affair next. Global Screen is handling the sales.

Härö, an experienced filmmaker behind Golden Globe-nominated “The Fencer,” didn’t feel “desperate” to make a movie in English, he says.

“I hope it doesn’t feel forced. With English, there is always this thought that maybe this way, it will reach more people. But it just felt natural to set it in Ireland.”

“I love the loneliness of this landscape, its proximity to the sea. Also, ‘The Fencer’ was shot in Estonia and my next film will be in Finnish, German, Hebrew and Yiddish.”

Produced by Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho for Making Movies, as well as David Collins for Ireland...

James Cosmo, Catherine Walker, Brid Brennan star.

Germany sales agent Global Screen has acquired worldwide sales rights to Finnish filmmaker Klaus Haro’s English-language debut My Sailor, My Love.

The film shot last year in Ireland. It stars James Cosmo, Catherine Walker and Brid Brennan.

My Sailor, My Love tells the story of a retired sea captain who falls in love with his home aid; but his middle-aged daughter does not approve of the relationship.

The film is written by Jimmy Karlsson and Kirsi Wikman.

It is produced by Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho for Finland’s Making Movies ; and...

The foundation has granted €5.6 million worth of production support to 22 projects, including a documentary that will finally explain why Finns don’t show emotion. Proving once again that what the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, the Finnish Film Foundation – which has just received €5 million for production support from the Ministry of Education and Culture due to Covid-19 (see the news) – has redistributed €5.6 million among 22 new productions, consisting of ten feature-length fiction films, six documentaries, four series (including two animations) and, finally, two short films: Pete Riski’s Ero and For Relaxin’ Times by Aleksi Delikouras. Among the fiction features, It’s Alive Films scored a double win with Teemu Nikki’s A Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic and the children’s film Snot and Splash, while Making Movies, run by Kaarle Aho and Kai Nordberg, got €300,000 for Tonislav Hristov’s...

It’s hard to believe it’s almost time for a new year of the Sundance Film Festival, but we’re now less than two months away, and this writer is extremely excited to head to Park City once again, especially after digging into Sundance’s initial lineup announcement today. Not only does their Midnight slate look insanely great, but there are a ton of films running in Sundance’s other programming tracks that I am beyond excited to see in January.

Some of the highlights from today’s lineup announcement include Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile which chronicles the life of Ted Bundy (played by Zac Efron) through the experiences of his girlfriend; Paradise Hills, which stars Emma Roberts, Milla Jovovich, and Awkwafina; Relive from producer Jason Blum; Dan Gilroy’s Buzzsaw; and the Alien-themed documentary Memory. I’ve gone ahead and broken down all the titles...

Sales include Taiwan, China, Portugal and Spain.

Finnish heavy metal comedy Heavy Trip, has been sold to a raft of territories by sales agent LevelK.

They include Taiwan (Cineplex Development), China (DDDream), Portugal (Filmin), and Spain (Twelve Oaks Pictures). Ascot Elite, which previously bought the film for Germany, has now picked up the film for Benelux as well.

Previously, the film sold to the Us (Doppelgänger Releasing/Music Box Films) as well as PayTV for Eastern Europe (HBO Central Europe). Scanbox released in Finland in March.

The film had its world premiere at SXSW and it will screen at the...

Sales include Taiwan, China, Portugal and Spain.

Finnish heavy metal comedy Heavy Trip, has been sold to a raft of territories by sales agent LevelK.

They include Taiwan (Cineplex Development), China (DDDream), Portugal (Filmin), and Spain (Twelve Oaks Pictures). Ascot Elite, which previously bought the film for Germany, has now picked up the film for Benelux as well.

Previously, the film sold to the Us (Doppelgänger Releasing/Music Box Films) as well as PayTV for Eastern Europe (HBO Central Europe). Scanbox released in Finland in March.

The film had its world premiere at SXSW and it will screen at the...

Sales include Japan, Brazil and Taiwan.

LevelK has closed a number of deals for Klaus Härö’s One Last Deal, after the Finnish drama’s world premiere in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema section.

Sales have been done for Japan (New Select), Australia/New Zealand (Rialto),

Brazil (Cineart Filmes), Taiwan (Swallow Wings), and worldwide airlines excluding Taiwan & the Nordics (Encore Inflight Limited).

The story follows an elderly art dealer on the verge of retirement who wants to pull off one last big deal, with the help of his estranged grandson. Anna Heinämaa wrote the screenplay.

Lauren Valmadre, sales manager at LevelK,...

Scandinavian sales outfit LevelK has picked up “One Last Deal,” Finnish director Klaus Härö’s follow up to Golden Globe-nominated film “The Fencer.”

Set to world premiere at Toronto in the Contemporary World Cinema section, “One Last Deal” follows Olavi, an elderly art dealer on the verge of retirement who has always put business and art before everything, and embarks on a journey to sell an unmarked painting found at an auction. The film was written by Anna Heinämaa, and it stars Heikki Nousiainen, Amos Brotherus and Pirjo Lonka.

One of Finland’s most successful filmmakers, Härö made his feature debut with “Elina” which won the Berlin Crystal Bear in 2003, while his latest film “The Fencer” was shortlisted for an Oscar and nominated for a foreign-language Golden Globe in 2016.

“One Last Deal” is produced by Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho at Making Movies whose credits include “The Fencer” and Tonislav Hristov’s “The Good Postman.

Music Box Films’s genre label Doppelgänger Releasing and Germany’s Ascot Elite have acquired U.S. and German distribution rights, respectively, to Finnish back metal comedy “Heavy Trip” from LevelK.

The film, which had its world premiere at SXSW, follows Turo, a musician from a small village in Northern Finland who takes his undiscovered heavy metal band on an eventful road trip to play at Norway’s biggest heavy metal music festival. The band went on to become the famed Finnish group Impaled Rektum. The movie stars Johannes Holopainen, Minka Kuustonen and Ville Tiihonen.

“We’ve been on the hunt for something a little different for Doppelgänger Releasing,” said Lisa Holmes of Music Box Films/Doppelgänger Releasing. “’Heavy Trip’ is such a fun combination of humor, heart and of course, heavy metal that we couldn’t resist the opportunity to bring this to American audiences.”

Ascot Elite Entertainment CEO...

They will host market screenings for Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio’s film in Cannes.

LevelK has acquired world sales rights to Finnish comedy Heavy Trip after its successful launch at SXSW.

LevelK will host market screenings in Cannes for the film, which is directed by Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio.

Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho produced for Making Movies on a budget of $3.8m (€3.1m), financed by the Finnish Film Foundation, Yle & Film Camp.

Scanbox Entertainment released the film locally on March 9.

The cast includes Johannes Holopainen, Minka Kuustonen & Ville Tiihonen.

The story is about an unknown heavy metal...

Heavy Trip, the story of big dreamers from a small town, had its world premiere last month at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin. In the film, Turo, with his band Impaled Rektum, steal a van, a corpse and a coffin from the local cemetery, a new drummer from the local mental hospital and flee to Norway. As they are escaping Finnish police, they have to face the Norwegian Army in order to get to play their first real gig.

“Two directors from very high up in the North came to us explaining that they had the best comedy ever on an idea basis,” said producer Kai Nordberg during his stop at Deadline’s SXSW studio. The two director he’s referring are Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio, both of whom co-wrote the script with Aleksi Puranen and Jari Olavi Rantala. “After developing the script for four years with them...

Other Nordic works-in-progress presentations include Anne Sewitsky’s Sonja Henie biopic and Anna Magnusson’s new Bergman documentary.

Source: TriArt

‘Untitled Anna Odell project’

Provocative Swedish artist and filmmaker Anna Odell (The Reunion) unveiled footage from her forthcoming as-yet-untitled feature as part of the works in progress presentations at Goteborg’s Nordic Film Market.

The idea for the project has been mostly under wraps, except that it was to star the director with Mikael Persbrandt. Frida Bargo and Matthias Nohrborg of Sweden’s B-Reel produce and New Europe has come on board to handle international sales. The feature is editing now could be ready for summer/autumn. TriArt will release in Sweden.

Read more: Gabriela Pichler’s ‘Amateurs’ wins Goteborg’s Dragon Award

“I worked with a mix of reality and fiction and what people believe about Mikael Persbrandt, who is Sweden’s most famous male actor, and what people think about me as an artist known for doing...

17 projects selected for festival showcase.

A strong crop of works in progress projects are set to be presented at Goteborg’s Nordic Film Market, which runs Feb 1-4.

Source: Maipo Film

Queen Of Ice

The selection includes new films from Benedikt Erlingsson (Of Horses and Men), Michael Noer (R), and Anne Sewitsky (Happy Happy).

Presentations of clips by the directors/producers will be made to the industry attendees in Goteborg.

Erlingsson will present his new film Woman At War, an “arthouse action film” about an Icelandic woman on an environmental mission. Noer will discuss his new Danish period drama A Better Life starring Jesper Christensen as an 1850s farmer. Sewitsky will unveil footage of her Sonja Henie biopic Queen Of Ice.

The 17 projects are:

Swoon, dir Mans Marlind and Björn Stein, prod Kristina Aberg (Swe) Bergman, dir Jane Magnusson, prods Mattias Nohrborg, Fredrik Heinig, Cecilia Nessen (Swe) Happy People, dir Samanou Acheche Sahlstrøm, prod Jakob Høgel (Den...

Exclusive: Jussi Hiltunen’s Lapland-set feature is screening at Goteborg’s Nordic Film Market and Berlin’s Efm.

LevelK has taken on sales for Jussi Hiltunen’s Finnish dramatic thriller Law Of The Land.

The Denmark-based sales company will screen the film at Berlin’s Efm and it is also screening for industry at this week’s Nordic Film Market in Goteborg.

The film is a modern Western set in Arctic Lapland on the Finnish-Swedish border.

The story follows Lasse, a retiring policeman who gets caught in between two men trying to kill each other.

Nordisk Film released in January in Finland.

Producers are Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho for Making Movies in co-production with Joachim Lyng of Sweet Films (Norway) and Svein Andersen & Kjetil Jensberg of FilmCamp (Norway).

The $2.6m (€2.4m) film was backed by the Finnish Film Foundation, Yle, Eurimages, the Norwegian Film Institute, Creative Europe and FilmCamp.

Finnish director...

The winner of the Eurimages Lab Project Award from Haugesund’s Works In Progress presentations was Katrín Ólafsdóttirs The Wind Blew On from Iceland.

The new prize, worth $56,000 (€50,000) was given to “the most promising cutting-edge film presented as a work in progress”.

The jury was comprised of Norwegian filmmaker Bent Hamer, Dorien van de Pas of the Netherlands Filmfund, and Heidi Zwicker of Sundance.

Head of New Nordic Films Gyda Velvin Myklebust noted that the award was aimed at a film that was “experimental in form or content”.

Of the 20 films presented, industry buzz was highest for pitches including Izer Aliu’s energetic and funny teenage story 12 Dares; Norwegian debut The Tree Feller; Fenar Ahmad’s Danish criminal underworld drama/thriller Darkland, Danish debut Winter Brothers; family animation Richard The Stork (already a hot seller for Global Screen); absurdist Norwegian comedy Lake Over Fire; and Danish drama Mesteren, starring Soren Malling and Jakob Oftebro and directed by [link...

Celluloid Dreams handles Valley of Shadows; Media Luna boards Little Wing; Indie Sales represents The Giant.

The old adage of ‘leaving them wanting more’ was certainly on display at the Works In Progress pitches at Goteborg’s Nordic Film Market this year (full line-up below).

The most-anticipated pitch of the session was Johannes Nyholm’s feature debut The Giant. The director showed several scenes from the film, but refrained from showing footage of the fantastical Giant as he said the VFX was still being worked on.

Also holding back were the producers of Cold Case Hammarskjold, the latest provocative documentary from Mads Brugger (of The Ambassador and The Red Chapel fame), about the death of Swedish diplomat and author Dag Hammarskjold.

Co-producer Andreas Rocksen said the filmmakers had a new theory about how Hammarskjold’s plane went down in 1961, but he said the theory won’t be revealed until the film is ready.

Several of the...

Former winners of Screen International’s Best Pitch Award are among the producers with projects at the co-production market during the 14th edition of Tallinn’s Baltic Event (Nov 16-18).Scroll down for full list of projects

Finnish producers Kaarle Aho and Kai Nordberg of Making Movies Oy, who won the Screen award on two occasions (most recently, last year for the comedy Impaled Rektum) will be coming to the Baltic Event with Klaus Harö’s next feature project, the grandfather-grandson drama Dark Christ.

Making Movies is the producer of Harö’s The Fencer, Finland’s submission for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar.

Another of Harö’s feature projects, Never Alone, to be produced by Mrp Productions’ Ilkka Matila, received Screen’s best pitch award in 2011.

Meanwhile, Lithuanian producer Uljana Kim, whose production of Kristijonas Vildziunas’ Seneca’s Day took the award home from the 2013 edition of the Baltic Event, will be back...

Once I Was A Dragonfly was selected from 10 works in progress presented to the festival’s jury.

Producer-director Elli Toivoniemi’s feature documentary debut Once I Was A Dragonfly received the Best Pitch Award at this year’s Finnish Film Affair (Sept 22-24) in Helsinki.

The new $3,400 (€3,000) award, which was sponsored by the Finnish Film Foundation for use in the film’s international marketing, was decided by a three-person jury made up of Fortissimo Films’ Berenice Fugard, Robert Burke of TenOne Entertainment and La-based critic Barbara Gasser.

Announcing the winner on Wednesday evening, Gasser said that it had been a “tough decision” to make the final choice from the 10 works in progress, but Toivoniemi’s film boasted “stunning visuals” and was “a story we could also relate to”.

The $224,000 (€200,000) Tuffi Films production centres on 24-year-old Miikka Friman’s lifelong fascination with dragonflies from the tender age of six and the decisions he must take as the obligations...

Exclusive: Drama is directed by Klaus Härö and will head to next week’s Cannes Marche.

Ahead of next week’s Cannes Marche, The Little Film Company has acquire the latest feature from Finnish director Klaus Härö, The Fencer.

Härö won the Crystal Bear at Berlin 2003 with his feature debut, Elina: As If I Wasn’t There, and has since made films including Mother of Mine (2005) and Letters To Father Jacob (2009), which sold around the world.

His latest film is about a young Estonian fencer who flees from the Russian secret police and is forced to return to his homeland, where he becomes a physical education teacher at a local school - but the past soon catches up with him.

The Fencer is written by Anna Heinämaa and stars Märt Avandi andß Ursula Ratasepp. The film is a Making Movies production, produced by Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho.

London and La-based The Little Film Company is also...

The Screen International Best Pitch Award at Tallinn’s Baltic Event last December went to Finnish producers Kaarle Aho and Kai Nordberg of Making Movies Oy who were pitching Impaled Rektum with the feature debutants Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio [pictured].

The €1.4m production about a young loser trying to overcome his stage fright and other fears by leading the worst heavy band of Finland, Impaled Rektum, is the second project from Helsinki-based Making Movies to have won Screen’s Best Pitch Awtalk ard during the Baltic Event co-production event

Aho and Nordberg had previously been selected with Petri Kotwica’s Rat King which then went on to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2012.

The new project has already received two tranches of development support from the Finnish Film Foundation and a € 250,000 commitment from Film Camp Norway.

¨We’d been thinking for a long time that we should do something like a comedy because most of what...

Producers from Finland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Poland and Russia picked up awards at this year’s 13th Baltic Event co-production market (Nov 24-28) in Tallinn.

Finnish comedy Impaled Rektum by feature debutants Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio was awarded the Screen International Best Pitch Award.

The €1.4m production about a young loser trying to overcome his stage fright and other fears by leading the worst heavy band of Finland, Impaled Rektum, to the hottest metal festival in Norway, will be produced by Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho of Helsinki-based Making Movies Oy.

This is the second time that Nordberg and Aho have received Screen’s Best Pitch Award after having previously been selected with Petri Kotwica’s Rat King which then went on to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Other past winners of the award include Alexei German’s Under Electric Clouds, which is understood to be premiering at a major international film festival soon, and...

Now in its 13th edition, Baltic Event will present 13 projects in its 10th Co-Production Market, among others.

Baltic Event has unveiled its project slate for its 2014 edition, taking place during the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival on Nov 26-28.

Now in its 13th year, the event will present 13 projects in its 10th Co-Production Market, eight projects in its script and pitch workshop Powr Baltic Stories Exchange, eight projects in Baltic Bridge East by West (B’Est)producers’ workshop and 17 Baltic and Finnish projects in its Works in Progress and Screenings sections.

Projects for the Co-Production Market come from 11 countires, including Ignas Jonynas’ Blind Spot from Lithuania and Piotr Trzaskalski’s The Wounded Beats from Poland. The full list of projects is as follows:

The 30th Love, producer Julia Mishkinene, Vita Aktiva, Russia, director Angelina NikonovaBlind Spot, producer Kristina Ramanauskaite, Revoliucijos idėja, Lithuania, director Ignas JonynasEternal Road, producer Ilkka Matila Mrp, Matila Röhr Productions...

Producers from Lithuania, Romania, Denmark and Finland were the recipients of five awards presented at the Baltic Event’s Co-Production Market (Nov 26-29).

This year’s Screen International Best Pitch Award went to Lithuanian producer Uljana Kim of Vilnius-based Studio Uljana Kim who was pitching Kristijonas Vildžiūnas’s fourth feature Seneca’s Day which is set to be the first co-production between the three Baltic states.

The €1.48m drama, which also has France’s Philippe Avril attached as a co-producer via his Strasbourg-based company Unlimited, has already received development support from the Lithuanian Film Centre and Media.

Previous winners of the Screen International award, which follows the winning project editorially from development into production and subsequent distribution, includes Petri Kotwica’s Rat King, Alexei German Jr.’s Under Electric Clouds and Jaak Kilmi’s The Hoppers.

Cannes Producers Network

Cannes’ Producers Network gave two free accreditations for its 2014 edition to two promising young producers, the Baltic...