Miia Tervo’s “The Missile,” an absurdist dramatic comedy based on the real-life story of a Soviet missile landing in Finnish Lapland in 1984, took home the top prize Thursday at the Finnish Film Affair, an annual industry event running parallel to the Helsinki International Film Festival — Love & Anarchy.
“The Missile” was one of five fiction feature works in progress that were pitched to an audience of industry guests in Helsinki on Sept. 21, during the Finnish Film Affair’s showcase of local and regional projects. The sophomore feature of Finnish director Tervo, known for the female-centered romantic comedy “Aurora,” the film is produced by Kaisla Viitala and Daniel Kuitunen of Helsinki-based Elokuvayhtiö Komeetta, with Stellar Film co-producing.
“The Missile” tells the empowering story of an abused single mother working at a small-town newspaper who gets drawn into the investigation surrounding the missile crash, which upends life in a small northern village. Speaking to Variety ahead of the Finnish Film Affair, Tervo said she wanted to portray an average woman who suddenly finds herself thrust into the corridors of power.
“I wanted to write a fragile and insecure woman,” she said. “I didn’t want to have this superwoman. She’s very strong. She finds the strength inside her, but these things are also really scary.” Tervo described her protagonist “as a proactive hero in the midst of these men’s war games,” but also as a woman who is curious and funny and “has a chance to prove — mainly to herself — that she is capable.”
In its citation of the award-winning project, the jury noted: “The director’s personal voice can be heard in the timeless but also topical northern comedy, with plenty of local character and international potential.” The jury was comprised of Franziska Bioh, acquisitions manager at MUBI, Steve Gravestock, former senior programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Josef Kullengård, head of industry at the Göteborg Film Festival.
The documentary jury, which consisted of Oleksandra Kravchenko, producer at Moon Man, Mita Suri, film program producer at Sheffield Doc/Fest, and Debra Zimmerman, executive director at Women Make Movies, noted: “The project sheds light to an interesting and pivotal event in political history, and addresses alarming issues with genuine humor. The jurors were impressed by the commitment and passion of the team and how the artistic vision skillfully presents to a modern audience.”
Sponsored by the Finnish Film Foundation, Konstsamfundet and AVEK, respectively, each award consists of €3,000 ($3,190) which will go toward the project’s international marketing for the fiction and Nordic features and the completion of an international trailer for the best documentary project.
Other projects generating buzz this week in Helsinki include the horror films “The Mire,” by Marika Harjusaari, and “Will-o’-the-Wisp,” from director Hanna Västinsalo, the Nordic Selection’s “Glaspest,” by Elina Sahlin, as well as Virpi Suutari’s documentary “Once Upon a Time in the Forest.”
The 12th edition of the Finnish Film Affair was the event’s biggest to date, with more than 500 guests from 26 countries attending on-site. Maria Pirkkalainen-Barber, head of the Finnish Film Affair and the Nordic Flair training program, commented: “We are really happy to keep growing our audiences both internationally and in Finland, and to keep attracting new attendees, too. A third of our attendees attended Finnish Film Affair for the first time this year.”
The 36th Helsinki International Film Festival — Love & Anarchy runs Sept. 14 – 24.
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