Notizie

Four years after it was founded, the Finnish company is entering its second phase of expansion. Helsinki-based venture capital company Ipr.Vc has announced the creation of a €42 million fund specialised in European film, TV and web content. With this move, the firm is planning to raise about €60-70 million by the end of next year. Ipr.Vc, the first Nordic venture capital investment firm dedicated to media content, was founded four years ago by entrepreneurs Timo Argillander, Tanu-Matti Tuominen and Jarkko Virtanen, and invested €20 million in 16 content projects or companies, and in the development of 14 projects. Some of their backed productions include Miikko Oikkonen’s crime series Bordertown, and features such as Dome Karukoski’s Tom of Finland and Klaus Härö’s One Last Deal. During this second phase of expansion, the funds for which have been raised through a group of institutional, private and public investors, the firm will.

Finnish director Klaus Haro is best known for Golden Globe-nominated The Fencer and 2018 Toronto selection One Last Deal.

Finnish director Klaus Haro, best known for Golden Globe-nominated The Fencer and 2018 Toronto selection One Last Deal, has wrapped the shoot for his next feature, Life After Death.

The film, a drama-comedy, is described by Haro as “an autobiographical father-son story.” It is inspired by the time in the director’s own life, at age 23, when his mother passed away and he thought he would be bonding in grief with his father but instead the pair were squabbling over minor details.

“She...

Two-part programme will nurture film and TV projects from leading international producers.

The Climb producer Noah Lang, Finnish Making Movies Oy chief Kaarle Aho and Canadian actress and producer Rebecca Gibson are among the 26 producers who will participate in the 11th edition of Trans-Atlantic Partners (Tap).

A joint initiative between Germany’s Erich Pommer Institute (Epi) and the Canadian Media Producers Association (Cmpa), with the support of Telefilm Canada and the Canada Media Fund, the two-part Tap programme is the only one of its kind devoted to supporting transatlantic film and high-end TV productions.

The first module runs in Berlin...

After successfully collaborating on 2015’s fact-inspired “The Fencer,” Finnish director Klaus Haro and scenarist Anna Heinamaa reteam for another low-key wade into feel-good dramatic terrain with “One Last Deal.” This wholly fictive tale centers on an elderly Helinski gallery owner, whose attempt to pull off a final sales coup before retiring, ends up enlisting help from — and mending relations with — his semi-estranged daughter and grandson. Restraint early pays off in emotional rewards later for what’s essentially a formulaic curmudgeon-redeemed-despite-himself tearjerker. Among the more popular titles this year among Palm Springs’ older-skewing festival-goers, it could capitalize on that appeal in offshore sales while also offering remake potential to overseas admirers.

Olavi is a widower who devotes all his time to his business, and probably always has. But that business is not doing particularly well: Online sales have seriously cut into storefront enterprises such as his own, and he’s so...

Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare tale All Is True has been selected to open the Palm Springs Film Festival, which Friday unveiled its full lineup of films for the 30th edition that runs January 3-14. The fest also said that Bruce Bereford’s Ladies in Black will be the closing-night film, with the director and cast members expected to be in attendance.

In all, the fest will screen 223 films from 78 countries, and as usual will screen a slew of Oscar Foreign Language Film entries, this year numbering 43 of the 87 official submissions. Also on the docket: a 30-film retrospective of past fest selections, dubbed the Palm Springs Canon; special focuses on cinema from France, India and Mexico, and Jewish and queer cinema; and the new Ricky Jay Magic of Cinema Award, named for actor and magician Ricky Jay who died last month.

In addition to the film lineup, the opening awards gala...

The Palm Springs International Film Festival has announced its 2019 lineup, and it’s prodigious: 223 films from 78 countries, four of them world premieres. Though well known for celebrating future Oscar nominees (and winners) each year, the festival also boasts a deceptively robust world-cinema slate; among the upcoming offerings are Jia Zhangke’s “Ash Is Purest White,” Sergey Loznitsa’s “Donbass,” Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s “Birds of Passage,” and Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s “Asako I & II,” to name just a few.

A number of post-screening Q&As will also be held, including with “Black Klansman” author Ron Stallworth and “Support the Girls” star Regina Hall, in addition to a new section celebrating the best films to screen at Psiff throughout its first three decades.

World premieres:

Buck Run (USA), Director Nick Frangione

Carlos Almaraz Playing With Fire (USA), Directors Elsa Flores Almaraz, Richard Montoya (Schlesinger Documentary Competition)

The Last Color...

The project is directed by 15 female writers and directors.

Tuffi Films short film anthology One-Off Incident won the Finnish Film Affair’s work in progress award, which goes to the project presented that is most likely to attract international attention.

One-Off Incident is an anthology of short films about how power is used against women in their private lives as well as in society. The project will also include an awareness campaign.

The project is directed by 15 female writers and directors and curated by Tuffi Films’ group of female producers; it was pitched by director Alli Haapasalo and Tuffi producer Elli Toivoniemi.

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,...

LevelK has acquired the comedy-drama “H is for Happiness,” which marks the feature debut of Australian theater director John Sheedy.

Based on Australian author Barry Jonsberg’s popular young adult novel “My Life as an Alphabet,” the film follows Candice Phee, an optimistic 12-year-old girl from a small coastal town who is determined to bring her family back from the brink while facing the trials of adolescence. The novel was adapted by Australian screenwriter Lisa Hoppe, whose credits include the award-winning short “Heck.”

“I have always admired films such as ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ ‘Pretty in Pink,’ ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ and most Wes Anderson films and it is the influence of these filmmakers and styles that will help [me] create a film that will be truly unique and full of quirks, pathos and humor,” said Sheedy.

Sheedy has a strong track record of directing theatrical works aimed at families and young people.