Category: Art
art
The rest of the extra funds for the film industry will go to, among other things, the digitalization of small countryside cinemas and films for children.
In the previous proposal there was no extra money allocated to support domestically produced films, despite earlier suggestions by Wallin.
The over 10 million euros extra to directly benefit cultural, youth work and sports activities were freed up from the National Lottery profits. In the earlier proposal much of that money was reserved to partly cover rental expenses, paying off loans of cultural bodies and renovations (including the renovation of the National Theatre).
Funds to cover those real estate expenses will now have to be found elsewhere.
The Parliament will likely vote on the proposal on Friday.
Related:
Finnish film producers in protest: no new films
The festival drawing the largest amount of visitors this year was the Maritime Festival in Kotka. An estimated 300,000 people visited the Tall Ship Races and other events in the port town 130 km east of Helsinki.
The festival with the biggest number of paying visitors (almost 65,000) was the Helsinki Festival. With 264,376 visitors in total, it was the second biggest Finnish festival overall in 2007.
TOP 10 BIGGEST FESTIVALS* – OVERALL
1. Kotka Maritime Festival – 300 000 visitors
2. Helsinki Festival – 264 376
3. Pori Jazz – 153 000
4. Kaustinen Folk Music Festival – 121 000
5. Tampere Theatre Festival – 76 000
6. World Village Festival, Helsinki – 70 000
7. Puistoblues, Järvenpää – 70 000
8. Savonlinna Opera Festival – 68 753
9. Provinssirock, Seinäjoki – 55 000
10. Imatra Big Band Festival – 52 000
*) Includes only festivals that are members of Finland Festivals
(Source: Finland Festivals)
TOP 10 FESTIVALS* – PAYING VISITORS
1. Helsinki Festival – 64 845 paying visitors
2. Savonlinna Opera Festival – 58 555
3. Pori Jazz – 58 000
4. Kaustinen Folk Music Festival – 41 000
5. Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival – 32 436
6. Orivesi Summer Festivals – 26 741
7. Art Centre Salmela, Mäntyharju – 26 000
8. Tampere Theatre Festival – 26 000
9. Provinssirock, Seinäjoki – 21 500
10. Kotka Maritime Festival – 20 000
*) Includes only festivals that are members of Finland Festivals
(Source: Finland Festivals)
The statistics given above are only based on the amounts of visitors of member festivals of Finland Festivals. Big events like the Tango Festival in Seinäjoki (104,390 visitors in 2007), the Raumanmeri Midsummer Festival (about 90,000) and Ruisrock in Turku (65,000) are not included.
Tango Festival, Seinäjoki
Obie Trice – Official website
Obie Trice – MySpace
Finnish Minister of Culture Stefan Wallin finds the decision a great honour for the City of Turku, for Finland and for Europe. “Turku is Finland’s oldest city, and a place from which culture originated and remains to this day. This is a great day for us all. It feels wonderful to be from Finland and, even more specifically, from Turku”, Wallin commented in Brussels.
Every year cities in two EU countries get the honour to carry the title of European Capital of Culture for one year, based on a system of rotation. This year’s European Capitals are the cities of Luxembourg and Sibiu (Romania).
Cultural capitals have been chosen since 1980. The cities are given the chance to showcase their cultural diversity and development and promote their cultural activities internationally.
The cities of Turku and Tallinn are planning close co-operation.
Celebration
On Tuesday (20.11) the City of Turku is organizing a big Turku On Fire celebration on the Aura River banks to thank the thousands of people who took part in the bidding process. From 6 p.m. there will be a big fire show with dozens of performers at the Theatre Bridge next to the Turku City Theatre.
The organizers are kindly asking the audience to gather on the western side of the river close to Pharmacy Museum and the Student Theatre.
Nominated for the Finlandia prize 2007 are:
Kohti [‘Towards’] by Juha Itkonen
Det har varit kallt i Madrid [‘It’s been cold in Madrid’] by Agneta Ara
Romeo ja Julia [‘Romeo and Juliet‘] by Jari Järvelä
Lakanasiivet [‘(The) Bed sheet wings’] by Sirpa Kähkönen
Sakset [‘(The) Scissors’] by Laura Lindstedt
Toiset Kengät [‘The other shoes’] by Hannu Väisänen
Literature researcher Laura Lindstedt is the debutant on the short list. Hannu Väisänen is a well-known Finnish artist. Swedish-speaking Agneta Ara is a Finnish novelist and poet who earlier won the Runeberg Prize for literature. Sirpa Kähkönen is a novelist and translator who has written both books for children and young adults and historical novels.
Well-known Finnish writers Jari Järvela and Juha Itkonen have both been nominated for the Finlandia Prize before. Itkonen is also on the short list for the 2007 Finlandia Junior award (literature for children and young adults) for his book
Taikuri Into Kiemura.
The 3-person selection committee read a total of 94 works. The final receiver of the Finlandia Prize for fiction is this year chosen by cultural editor Kaisu Mikkola. The winner, who will also get a 26,000-euro award sum, will be announced on the 4th of December.
Related:
Nominations for Finlandia Junior award announced
Finlandia Prize – Wikipedia
The Board of Directors of the Finnish National Opera Foundation decided on the appointment on Wednesday (14.11), after it had proposed him for the job two weeks earlier. Also the personnel groups of the Finnish National Opera agreed unanimously with the nomination.
As Artistic Director, Greve will be responsible for the artistic planning and development of the classical ballet and modern dance programme of the FNB. He will also be in charge of the content and artistic policy of the Ballet.
The term of the current Artistic Director, Dinna Bjørn, ends at the end of July, 2008.
Related:
Danish dancer nominated for director post at National Ballet
Kenneth Greve in Etudes (Royal Danish Ballet) – DR1/YouTube
Interview with Kenneth Greve – Ballet-Dance Magazine (May, 2006)
Finnish National Ballet (at the Finnish National Opera)
Press release about the nomination of Greve – Finnish National Opera (31.10.2007)
Nominated for the 2007 Finlandia Junior prize are:
> Tatun ja Patun Suomi (‘Tatu and Patu’s Finland‘) by Aino Havukainen & Sami Toivonen
> Taikuri Into Kiemura by Jukka Itkonen
> Filmi poikki (‘Film broken‘) by Hanna Marjut Marttila
> Herttuan hovissa – Elämää 1550-luvun Turussa (‘In the Duke’s Court – Life in the Turku of the 1550s‘) by Paula Moilanen & Kirsi Haapamäki
> Emilian päiväkirja – Supermarsu lentää Intiaan (‘Emily’s diary – Super Guinea Pig flies to India‘) by Paula Noronen
> Orava ja pääskynen (‘The squirrel and the swallow‘) by Maria Vuorio
The receiver of the prize, which comes with an award sum of 26,000 euros, will this year be chosen by Inkeri Näätsaari, the Director of the Turku City Library. The winner will be announced on November the 29th.
The Finlandia Junior award is one of three prestigious prizes awarded annually by the Finnish Book Foundation, the others being the Finlandia Award (Best novel, since 1984) and the Tieto-Finlandia (Best non-fiction book, since 1989).
The first ever book to win the Finlandia Junior was Gondwanan lapset (‘Children of Gondwana‘) by Iranian-born Finnish writer, documentary maker, director-producer and publisher Alexis Kouros, in 1997. Last year, the prize was awarded to Timo Parvela for his book Keinulauta (‘The seesaw‘).
Finlandia Prize – Wikipedia
Even though no final promises
have been made, the producers trust the Parliament to make the right decisions.
They base their trust on the fact that both the Education and Culture Committee
and the Audit Committee of the Parliament have expressed their opinion that the
lottery funds should be used exclusively to support the actual cultural and
sport activities of the beneficiaries, instead of to partly cover e.g. rental
costs of cultural bodies, like the government had suggested.
Tickets for the Finnish part of the Somewhere Back In Time World Tour 08 will go on sale next Monday, the 12th of November, via Lippupalvelu.
Iron Maiden will release their double-DVD Live After Death in February (2008), as the band kicks off the Somewhere Back In Time world tour in Mumbai, India, on February 1st. After that, the tour will take the metal legends to Australia, Japan, the United States and Latin America.
Trip back in time
The world tour will be a trip back in time, as the entire set list will consist of Maiden material from the 80’s. The stage design will feature elements from that decade as well, with a specific focus on the Powerslave era. Also the group’s mascot Eddie will return and be part of the show.
During the course of their careers, Iron Maiden has sold over 70 million albums worldwide, with sales of well over 500,000 copies in Finland.
The last time the group
played in Finland was in 2006, when the band
performed in front of more than 31,600 fans during three sold-out gigs.
Update:
Second stadium concert Iron Maiden
SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME World Tour 08
– Nordic leg of the tour
16 July – Stockholm Stadium, Stockholm (SWE)
18 July – Olympic Stadium, Helsinki
22 July – Lerkendalstadium, Trondheim (NOR)
24 July – Valle Hovin, Oslo (NOR)
26 July – Ullevi Stadium, Gothenburg (SWE)
27 July – Horsens Gods Bane Pladsen, Horsens (DK)
Iron Maiden – official website
Iron Maiden – MySpace
The financially-strapped public broadcaster was to be one of the three financiers of the venture and pay 25 percent of the building costs. The City of Helsinki would also contribute 25 percent, with the State of Finland paying the remaining half.
YLE was prepared to pay a maximum of 35 million euros towards the building of the concert hall, where it hopes to accommodate its Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSO). However, according to the latest bid, YLE’s share in the project would rise far beyond that.
The broadcasting company now intends to simply rent space for the RSO in the future building.
Rejection
On Friday, the Board of the Music Centre venture rejected the only remaining bid to build it, which had been presented on Monday (29.10).
Third partner
Both the City of Helsinki and the Finnish State have publicly expressed their commitment to continue the music hall project and are looking for a new third partner.
The Musiikkitalo is to be built on the shores of Töölö Bay, opposite the Parliament Building and next to the Kiasma museum and Sanoma House.
The site has been one big, open building ground since the burning down and demolition of the old VR railway storehouses (‘Makasiinit‘) in May, 2006. Ground works continue despite the project’s setbacks.
Helsinki Music Centre (Musiikkitalo)
Live webcam images of the building site – Helsingin Sanomat
Photo gallery of the Makasiinit fire – Helsingin Sanomat
Greve, who is 39, has previously worked as a dancer with, among others, the New York City Ballet, the American Ballet Theater, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Stuttgart Ballet and the Vienna State Opera Ballet. He currently works with the Danish Royal Ballet in Copenhagen, where he has worked as Principal Dancer since 1992 and Ballet Master since 2006.
The Board will take its final decision on November 14th. If Greve is indeed appointed as the National Ballet’s Artistic Director, he will start working in Helsinki at the beginning of August, 2008.
Video of Kenneth Greve performing with the Danish Royal Ballet
Finnish National Ballet (at the Finnish National Opera)