YLE film about Marshal Mannerheim to be completed in September

A first screening will be arranged in connection with the Helsinki International Film Festival

print this

The programme of the 25th Helsinki International Film Festival - better known to Finns as Rakkautta ja anarkiaa (”Love & Anarchy”) - will offer a big surprise: the first screening of a film about the legendary WW II Finnish War Marshal and sixth President of Finland (1944-46) Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867-1951), produced by the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE.
      The somewhat secretively shot film entitled Suomen Marsalkka (”The Marshal of Finland”) will have its commercial première at the Love & Anarchy festival on September 28th.
     
”I hope that we will be able to complete the movie by then”, says Erkko Lyytinen, who has been in charge of the film project at YLE.
      Lyytinen is not willing to divulge more about the Marski movie. Shooting has already been completed by now, he is willing to admit. The film will be shown on television after the festival, the Love and Anarchy office reports.
      As recently as in May the funding of the project was still open.
     
According to the information gathered by Helsingin Sanomat, Suomen Marsalkka is ”a modern interpretation about the life of Mannerheim, focusing on his private life, particularly on his marriage and a few significant relationships with women in Mannerheim’s life”.
      The English-language name of the film is The Marshal of Finland. According to Lyytinen, a few international partners - for example from Estonia - have been involved in the production of the film.
      One of the scriptwriters has been Emma Taulo, who - like Lyytinen - has been working at the office of DocPoint - the Helsinki Documentary Film Festival.
     
A digital copy of Suomen Marsalkka will be produced for the Love & Anarchy show. Lyytinen hopes that after the festival the digi copy could be shown for wider audiences at movie theatres.
      A fiction film about the life of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, originally to be directed by Renny Harlin, has also been on the drawing-board for many years, but the production company Solar Films has been facing financial troubles.
     
     
FACTFILE: The R&A Festival will show more than 180 movies
     
More than 180 full-length films will be shown at the Love & Anarchy festival in September.
     
The opening movie will be Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, which was a prizewinner at the Sundance Festival.
     
For example Jacques Audiard’s new release Rust and Bone, Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share, and Sergei Loznitsa’s In the Fog have been all been picked up from the 2012 Cannes competition.
      William Friedkin’s Killer Joe and Arto Halonen’s documentary about the doping phenomenon within ski sports - entitled Sinivalkoinen valhe ("Blue-and-White Lie") will be shown at gala performances.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Almodóvar´s new release opens 24th Helsinki International Film Festival (5.8.2011)
  Helsinki - a surprisingly good city for cinema fans (28.9.2010)

See also:
  Director Harlin pulls out of Mannerheim film; producer Selin continues with project (23.5.2011)
  New financing puts Mannerheim movie project back on track (15.2.2010)
  Dome Karukoski will produce Mannerheim film with a smaller budget than Renny Harlin (25.10.2011)

Links:
  Helsinki International Film Festival
  Helsinki Documentary Film Festival DocPoint
  Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim

Helsingin Sanomat