Catching up with our Nordic peers: The rising demand for Finnish drama series and its impact on local film and television production companies

Abstract

Traditionally, the Finnish film and television industry has revolved around producing feature films and television series for local distribution. In the past five years, however, the industry has been transformed by a rising demand for high-end drama series. In addition to the positive developments for the economic stability of production companies, challenges are unfolding as the demand for new content keeps growing. This article introduces three recent and central developments, drawing on interviews with four local producers and an analysis of industry and media reports. First, new players have entered the market and introduced new financing opportunities, both domestic and international. Second, international co-production opportunities have grown through production companies’ new international focus. And finally, the introduction of the Finnish production incentive for the audio-visual industry has enabled more ambitious projects. These developments have led to two main challenges that the industry is currently facing: the imminent lack of experienced crew and the need for revised practices for screenwriting, development and production.

Post-Nordic-noir landscapes: Competition through localisation in Finnish streaming media

“…For Finnish productions to succeed in the international marketplace, producers have needed to consider ways to improve the quality of their productions and seek new forms of funding to do so. Finnish producer Aleksi Bardy explains (cited in Grundström et al, 2020) that production values have changed significantly, which has been achieved, for example, by new financial structures leading to increasing the number of shooting days, being more ambitious with cinematography, adding a variety of locations and facilitating more international casting.…”

“…The aim is to highlight how they can be used to position (or subvert) generic expectations in the international marketplace. While Finland does have a long history of crime fiction adaptation in programmes such as Raid (2000) and Rikospoliisi Maria Kallio (2003), these were all low budget productions with little international interest (Grundström et al, 2020). For example, Ib Bondebjerg and Redvall (2011) and Annika Pham (2017) note that Finland stood out as having remarkably low figures for domestic drama and that it was the least active Nordic country to export television drama.…”

“…These transformations have been attributed to policy changes in supporting Finnish drama production (Grundström et al, 2020). One of the main off-screen deciding factors in the Finnish context is the tax rebate system and the resulting financial decisions made by producers (Business Finland, 2021; Sim, 2021).…”

“…The producers interviewed by Grundström, Bajo and Matila for their 2019 overview of developments in Finnish television production, acknowledge that Finnish drama is still trying to catch up with foreign television series, especially with the best series from its Nordic neighbours. As in other countries, Finnish productions are competing over highly skilled people and talent from feature films are working across both film and television drama (Grundström et al, 2020). Recently, we have seen attempts to diversify the range of television produced in Finland by using the general templates set by the Nordic Noir brand.…”