Jaakko Seppälä
Jaakko.i.seppala@helsinki.fi
THE HISTORY OF FINNISH CINEMA
The Early Years
• First film screening in Finland 18.6.1896.
• First Finnish feature film: The Moonshiners (1907)
• Themes and characteristics of Finnish cinema:
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Consumption of alcohol
Depictions of nature
Adaptations of domestic plays and literature
Strong female characters
• Many of the early films were rather local than national
• In 1916 filmmaking activities were forbidden by the
Russian authorities.
• In these early years 25 fiction films were made and
hundreds of short documentary-like films.
• Fictions films made in this era are considered lost.
Atelier Apollo’s landscape film
Atelier Apollo’s landscape film
A Secret Command Behind the
Inheritance (1914)
The Formative Years
• New production companies were being
established in the late 1910s.
– Among them Suomi-Filmi Oy
• Finnish film industry faced a crisis
– Film was not recognised as art (heavy taxes)
– Civil war had divided Finnish people in two
– Hollywood films dominated national markets
• Companies began to produce distinctively
national films.
• Finnish rural films proved audience favourites.
The Burglary (1926)
Sound Film
• Synchronised sound films have been made in Finland
since 1931.
• Spoken native tongue became an important attraction.
• In 1937 an average domestic film made seven times as
much money as an average imported film.
• Oy Suomen Filmiteollisuus was established in 1933 and
it began to compete with Suomi-Filmi Oy.
• New genres and film cycles:
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Military farces
Logroller films
Modern city comedies
Historical patriotic dramas
Popular Themes in Hard Times
• The Winter War (1939–1940)
• The Continuation War (1941–1944)
• Finnish film industry was doing well.
– People craved for escapist entertainment.
• Every new Finnish film was seen by 10% of the
entire population.
• New film cycle: elaborate costume Films
– Romantic fantasies set in the 19th century
• Biggest stars: Tauno Palo and Ansa Ikonen
Tauno Palo and Ansa Ikonen
The End of the Studio Era
• Problem films as representatives of the post-war
era sentiments
– These were also known as syphilis films
• 1950s started with an ascending economic curve
for the Finnish film industry.
• Remakes of old favourites, detective films and
ballad films (Finnish musicals)
• The biggest success: The Unknown Soldier (1955)
– The film was seen by 2 700 000 spectators
The Unknown Soldier (Laine, 1955)
Changing values
• Finnish cinema faced a crisis in the late 1950s and it
deepened in the 1960s.
• Big production companies suffered the most.
• New generation of film critics began to criticise the
trends and style of the old Finnish cinema.
– There was a demand for art cinema.
• The 1960s saw the birth of new kind of Finnish cinema.
– Finnish new wave was influenced by European art
cinemas.
• New films failed to attract large audiences.
• Uuno Turhapuro -comedies were smash hits.
Skin (Niskanen, 1966)
Vesa-Matti Loiri as Uuno Turhapuro
”Numbscull Emptybrook”
Contemporary Finnish Cinema
• Finnish cinema suffered from lack of spectators
throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s.
• The new wave was short lived.
• Aki and Mika Kaurismäki began their careers in
the early 1980s.
– Films were favourably received at film festivals.
• Boom years 1999 and 2000
– Old genres and representations of past became
popular once again (now treated with nostalgia).
• Internationality mixed with Finnishness
– Car chases in Helsinki, Kung-fu in Finnish forests etc.
Lordi – new national hero?
Introductions to Finnish cinema
• Tytti Soila, ’Finland’ in Tytti Soila, Astrid
Söderbergh Widding and Gunnar Iversen,
Nordic National Cinemas (London: Routledge,
1998), pp. 31-95.
• Pietari Kääpä (ed.), Directory of World Cinema:
Finland (Bristol: Intellect, 2012)
• Peter Cowie, Finnish Cinema (Helsinki:
Suomen Elokuvasäätiö, 1990).