‘The golden era’ of Finnish documentary film financing and production

ABSTRACT

This article outlines trends in Finnish documentary film industry during the so-called golden era of 1990s and early 2000s based on key variables in documentary film financing and production. This period coincides with global documentary financiers increasing market orientation (‘factual turn’, which has largely broken the ties of documentary film production with filmic modes of craftsmanship and public service [Hogarth 2006. Realer than Real: Global Directions in Documentary. Austin: University of Texas Press, 5]. Public service cinema culture was still largely intact in Finland in the early 2000s and is the main reason for the ‘golden era’. The ‘golden era’ would not have been possible without strong domestic public subsidy organizations, The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture (Audiovisuaalisen kulttuurin edistämiskeskus, or AVEK) and the Finnish Film Foundation (Suomen elokuvasäätiö, or SES). Another crucial factor is that the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) has not given in to the global ‘factual turn’. Finnish documentary filmmakers strongly identify with Aaltonen’s [2006. Todellisuuden vangit vapauden valtakunnassa: Dokumenttielokuva ja sen tekoprosessi [The Prisoners of Reality in the Realm of Freedom: Documentary Film and Its Production Process]. Keuruu: Like, 248] observation that the metanarrative of documentary film is the narrative of itself becoming an art.

KEYWORDS:

• Documentary
• film
• production
• financing
• Finland

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCiD

Antti Haase http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9684-1298

Notes

1. For example Helke (2006) and Aaltonen (2006).

2. European funding program MEDIA was launched in 1991, IDFA’s financing forum in 1993 and Nordisk Forum in 1994.

3. The majority of funds that AVEK (established in 1987 by the Finnish copyright organization Kopiosto) distributes originate from private copying levy, for example, from blank DVDs and digital video recorders (AVEK 2014). The Finnish Film Foundation receives its funding through the Ministry of Education and Culture from lottery and pools funds allocated for promoting film art (SES 2014).

4. The research data were collected from subsidy databases, final reports, mid-reports, subsidy agreements and subsidy applications from production companies which had been approved and archived by SES and AVEK. Collected research data includes confidential information about Finnish documentary film productions and their production companies. Therefore single production companies or particular documentary films cannot be mentioned in this article, unless the information has been publicly available from SES or AVEK (e.g. on their websites).

5. Samples 1 and 2 include international co-productions, in which a Finnish production company operated as either the main producer or as a minor co-producer.

6. The figures omit AVEK’s temporary loans which were rare and amounted only to 50,793 euros during the 10-year period.

7. YLE's operations are financed by public broadcasting tax, which replaced TV licenses at the beginning of 2013. The company is 99.9% state-owned and supervised by an Administrative Council appointed by the Parliament (YLE 2014). In 2003 YLE1 and YLE2 TV channels had a 44% share of the total national audience (Tilastokeskus 2005, 47).

8. If we divide the total financing volume by the total length of documentary films in sample 2, the average price for one minute of Finnish documentary film becomes 2309 euros.

9. NFTF was established in 1990 and promotes film and TV productions of high quality in the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) by providing top-up financing for feature films, TV-fiction/series and creative documentaries (NFTF 2015).

10. The following people were interviewed at the end of 2015: general secretary Juha Samola (AVEK), film commissioner Elina Kivihalme (SES), commissioner Erkki Astala (YLE), producer Erkko Lyytinen (YLE) and director-producer Jouko Aaltonen (Illume Oy).

11. Finland’s consensus culture is based on all possible stakeholders coming together to find mutual understanding to shared problems and challenges through negotiations and compromises.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antti Haase

Notes on contributor

Antti Haase graduated from Australian Film TV and Radio School in 1999. He has written and directed several award-winning documentary films both in Australia and Finland. He initiated the book Tokallinen toellisuutta: 10 pohjoista todentekijää [A Herd of Reality: 10 Northern Documentary Artists] (2011) in which artists working in Northern Finland write about their documentary-based art practice.