Mannerheim film project is moving once again

The Finnish film industry’s “eternity project”, Hollywood director Renny Harlin’s Mannerheim biopic, looks to be shifting forwards - once again. The movie's production company Solar Films plans to make an announcement regarding the undertaking next week.
      “We are aiming for Tuesday. By then we should know if the financial package is together or not”, says Markus Selin of Solar Films.
     
The principal shooting of Mannerheim, a film of the life of Finland's wartime commander-in-chief and subsequent President Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim, was dramatically cancelled earlier this spring, when a substantial portion of the biopic’s EUR ten million budget was not guaranteed.
      After that the film’s screenplay by Heikki Vihinen and Marko Leino has been revised by two script doctors, Selin reveals. Selin refrains from revealing the names of the helpers, however.
      According to Selin, the final screenplay will be around 120-150 pages long, which would suggest that the film will come in at a length of around two and a half hours.
     
What would also indicate that the project is back on track and that the filming could start soon is the fact that Selin has continued conducting financing negotiations throughout the spring, most recently last week in Cannes.
      In March, to accompany the Solar Films subsidiary Liberty Productions that was set up for the film, another limited liability company called Liberty Invest was set up. The purpose of the new company is to raise money for the project through the issuing of shares.
     
If the undertaking is given the go-ahead next week, the shooting of the summer scenes can commence in August.
      Because of the approaching autumn there is little time for delays in making the decision to start filming.
      According to Selin’s plans the principal filming location is still a large film studio in Lithuania.
     
Delays in filming will also affect - and indeed have already affected - the make-up of the film crew. Some of the staff originally pencilled in for Mannerheim are now engaged on other projects.
      “The team is turning more domestic”, Selin says. According to Selin, the favouring of Finnish labour is not a question of money, even if the salaries of the foreign professionals are a substantial item of expenditure for Solar Films.
      Of the central figures, director Renny Harlin and make-up artist Greg Cannom are still on board.
      According to the present plans Mannerheim should premiere in October 2010.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Can a movie about Mannerheim reach an audience of a million? (3.3.2009)
  Danish Nordisk Film pulls out of Mannerheim film project (24.2.2009)
  Renny Harlin´s film crew for Mannerheim biopic includes double Oscar winner (3.12.2008)

Links:
  Mannerheim on the Internet Movie Database
  Solar Films
  C.G.E. Mannerheim (Wikipedia)