Laura Kuulasmaa: "Finnish producers mainly seek to close the remaining financing gap"

Audiovisual Producers Finland -APFI is a non-profit association, composes by over 110 member companies, dedicated to represent the Finnish producers interests. As main core mission, APFI advocates for audiovisual content producers, promotes internationalization and sustainability, manage copyrights collectively and organizes key industry events and competitions.

APFI attended last Series Mania because "Finnish producers are mainly looking for the remaining gap in the financing of the series," said Laura Kuulasmaa, Executive Director at Audiovisual Producers Finland – APFI, in an exclusive interview with Señal News.

In the "Coming Next from Sweden & Finland" showcase, Finnish producers have featured new drama series like "Aftershave" (6x45') produced by Rabbit Films and commissioned by Yle; “Torna a Surriento" (4x25') from Whatevergroup in co-production with Viola Films, Rein Films, Glassriver; and "Yours, Margot" (6x45') from Aamu Film Company and Achtung Panda, distributed by Beta. The Swedish producers showcased "My Brother" (4x45') from Filmlance International AB in coproduction with SVT, Filmpool Nord, Lunanime and commissioned by SVT; "Summer of 1985" (6x45') from Media Res Studio; and; "Till Death Do Us Part" (6x45') from Harmonica Films in coproduction with TV4, ZDF, SF Studios Production, Film Stockholm.

Finnish producers are not exempt of the current economic issues the audiovisual sector is going through. "The costs are going up and the budgets are going down. Local commercial commissioners are suffering from the overall economic situation and the government is cutting from the public broadcaster's funding, so they are all struggling with their financial situation," Kuulasmaa explained. “However, the Finns are good at creating high production value with limited resources, since we are used to working with efficient teams.”

She also underlined that the sign of all the Finnish projects presented at Series Mania were some kind of co-productions. "That's the best way to survive in the current market. We try to support them by bringing possibilities to find new partners, through networking and presenting their projects in showcases," she added.