The Finnish hit pic Christmas Story won two Jussi Awards (local “Oscars”) yesterday at the annual award ceremony in Helsinki. The Viewer’s Choice Jussi was presented to director-producer Juha Wuolijoki by Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen. Director of Photography Mika Orasmaa won the Jussi Award for Best Cinematography. Christmas Story is the feature debut by
Christmas Story has become the most successful Finnish film of the year. With total admissions of more than 225.000 in six weeks, the live-action family movie has overwhelmingly topped all of its competition. For the week ending December 27, Christmas Story took its customary place at the top of the Finnish box office chart, beating
Christmas Story continues to dominate the Finnish box office. In its fifth weekend in theaters, the family film reclaimed its #1 position after a brief visit to second place during Independence Day weekend, which featured the premiere of a Finnish war film. With total admissions up to 175.000, The Finnish Film Foundation expects Christmas Story
With the widest Finnish release of the year, Christmas Story has dominated the national box office. The family film led the field in its first weekend with 21.883 admissions from 60 screens, topping the previous front-runner, Disney hit Ratatouille (66 screens). In its second weekend, Christmas Story scored even better numbers, rising 19% — a
Canada-based world sales agent Delphis Films announced its most recent acquisition of a high quality family film from Finland, entitled Christmas Story, for the international marketplace outside Scandinavia. Christmas Story is a feature debut by Juha Wuolijoki and recounts a unique and amazing journey of Santa Claus on his way to become the Santa that
Out of the 2.5 million euro budget of Christmas Story, over 1 million comes from corporations. For an average Finnish movie, the amount of corporate funding of the production and marketing budgets is approximately one quarter.
Snapper Films’ 2004 television film Gourmet Club was part of the line-up at Sarasota Film Festival in April 2007, taking part by invitation. It was selected to the event from a group of hundreds of applicants. Director Juha Wuolijoki and one of the lead actors, Emmy Award winner Michael Badalucco were pleased to attend the
Principal photography was completed for the family film Christmas Story, the first big Finnish Christmas film, in March 2007. The secrets of Santa Claus’s unknown childhood are revealed in the film that finally tells the story of how and why Santa became what he is. Hannu-Pekka Björkman takes on the lead role of the adult
Variety, May 23, 2002: Snapper Films, the New York and Helsinki based production entity headed by Juha Wuolijoki, and Minnie Driver’s production shingle Two Drivers Prods., have formed an alliance to co-produce English language feature films in Europe. The pact is aimed at developing and producing feature films budgeted under the $10 million, with the
Screen International, February 21, 2001: German sales agent EuroArts Entertainment and the New York-based production house Snapper Films have formed a development and production alliance. Under the three-year deal, the two expect to produce at least two English-language pictures with budgets in the $5m region. “What we are looking for is films in three genres:
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