The market share of domestic features almost doubled in Finland last year. And last week three local productions headed the country's charts for the first time since 1953. Jørn Rossing Jensen reports on the surge of interest in movies made by home-grown talent.

Although blockbusters such as Titanic (which took more than one million admissions last year) always provide strong competition in Finland, the nation's renewed interest in local cinema seems to be increasing. The market share of domestic features almost doubled last year.

"Results are beginning to show," says Jouni Mykkänen, managing director of the Finnish Film Foundation.

Last week, three local productions headed the country's charts for the first time since 1953. "Compared with last year, total box-office receipts are down, but then both Titanic and and Tomorrow Never Dies were raiding the theatres," says Jouko Jämsä, managing director of Columbia-TriStar Egmont. "The situation is unique, and it fully confirms that audiences have returned to Finnish films."

In the week to Thursday 4 February Olli Saarela's Rukajärven tie (The Ambush) was at number one (112,000 admissions after two weeks); Aleksi Mäkelä's Häjyt (The Tough Ones) was number two (143,000 after three weeks); and Ramo O Niemi's Tommy and the Wildcat was number three (220,000 over seven weeks).

"More state money for feature film production has allowed us both to increase the number of productions and to allocate more finance on each project, making local cinema more competitive," says Mykkänen, who took over as head of the Finnish Film Foundation in 1995.

As the former deputy director-general of pubcaster YLE entered the foundation, he declared that his main goal was to double public funding for production to $13.5 million. "We are are not there yet, but the 40 per cent increase we have achieved so far has helped immensely. The heightened profile of Finnish films and their performance in the theatres have made it more attractive to be connected with the industry."

Northern delights Erkki Astala, head of production at the foundation, says: "Naturally, state money is a prerequisite for national feature film production, and the foundation is hugely important. But credit should go where it belongs: to the film-makers. "In the past couple of years we have seen a changing attitude among the young generation of producers and directors. They have demonstrated that they want to make films for an audience and not for themselves. They have even done so without compromising on quality. "This change of perspective has evidently inspired the older crop of film-makers, and we now seem to have a very homogeneous group of producers and directors concentrating 100 per cent on their work and forgetting about previous power struggles. This naturally creates a rather vibrant film community.

"I am particularly delighted that the young directors have followed the international tradition of film-making closely, confirming that the often-discussed conflict between Finnish reality and the international language of cinema is in fact non-existent."

Astala hopes that the government will "live up to its promise and further fuel the industry financially. The present support for feature film production is at the same level as it was in 1992, and we need to sustain an annual outlet of 10 to 12 features, as well as to increase the budgets for most of the projects. The aesthetics of low-budget producing has its advantages, but certainly its limitations too.

"Naturally I am pleased that the films we have subsidised are successful in the market. It has not come overnight, but will show gradually as our long-term planning gets to work. Once again, the foundation is providing only the framework that the film-makers have to fit.

"When choosing projects to support I never go from my own taste, but try to value each film from its own perspective - artistically as well as in the marketplace. I ask myself: 'Will this work? Will it reach its target?' Then I feel entitled to at least one total failure a year. Otherwise, there would hardly be space for any innovation."