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YLE withdraws from Helsinki music hall project

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

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Misc News

Danish dancer nominated for director post at National Ballet

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)

Danish Royal Ballet

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Misc News

Finnish musicians get “humiliating” treatment at U.S. airport

The ordeal took place on the 13th of September after Karjalainen and fellow musicians Ninni Poijärvi and Mika Kuokkanen had arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for a three week tour through the U.S. states of Minnesota and Michigan, including meetings with Finnish-Americans and performances at Finnish-American cultural events. They were joined by Finnish documentary filmmaker Erkki Määttänen, who was making a TV programme about the visit for Finnish public broadcaster YLE.

“Humiliating” treatment

The four were stopped by customs officials and interrogated for nearly three hours. “The treatment was bad,” Karjalainen told Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat. “’Don’t lie to us’, they yelled at us all the time.”

The Finns were each taken to separate rooms for questioning. Their luggage was checked by sniffer dogs. “First they suspected drugs. Then crime registers were asked for, “, said the singer, who described the actions of the officials as “supremacy“ and “humiliating“.

The questioning focused on whether or not the group came to earn money in the United States, while they were entering the country without work permits.

Threats, accused of lying

"They threatened us with severe punishments if we talk to each other," the Star Tribune quoted from the complaint that was signed by musicians Ninni Poijärvi and Mika Kuokkanen, "Through the walls, I can hear officers yelling, screaming. They ask about the purpose of our trip — except we are only allowed to give yes-or-no answers. I try to talk about our plans to meet with Finnish-American folk musicians. Nobody listens. They interrupt me constantly and they yell, 'You are a liar!"'

Filmmaker Määttänen told of similar experiences in the room he was kept in. "From the beginning, they said I was lying, that these guys were coming here to work. They were shouting at me, and people were going in and out of doors. They tried to put you down mentally, to humiliate you."

No apology

The Finns were released after nearly three hours, without any explanation or apology, according to the complaint.

A press officer for the regional Customs and Border Protection office in Chicago, who had not seen the complaint yet, told in a reaction that if such behaviour had indeed occurred, it would be against the agency’s policy and thoroughly investigated.

J. Karjalainen is one of Finland’s most popular singer-songwriters and a well-known devotee of Finnish-American folk music. Last year he released Lännen Jukka, Amerikansuomalaisia lauluja (Jukka of the West, Finnish-American songs), a collection of Finnish-American blues songs and a tribute to his musical mentor. The album was widely considered one of the best Finnish recordings of 2006.

Minnesota's Finnish guests find a rude airport welcome – Star Tribune

J. Karjalainen – official label site (in Finnish)
Lännen Jukka – official album website (in Finnish)

J. Karjalainen records classic Finnish-American songs – Helsingin Sanomat International Edition
Jukka Karjalainen "Channels" Old Country Blues… – New World Finn

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Misc News

Mika Kaurismäki opens Brazilian restaurant

The restaurant will have a capacity of about 300 people and will offer Brazilian food, wine, beer and other drinks.

There will also be live music on offer at Bossa, starting with Brazilian music about once a week. Later on, Kaurismäki would also like to programme a wider range of music performances.

Mika Kaurismäki is the elder brother of director Aki Kaurismäki. Unlike Aki, he is especially known for his international co-productions.  During the past five years, Mika, who has lived in Rio de Janeiro since the early nineties, has delivered several films that focused on music and Brazil, such as Moro no Brasil (2002) and Brasileirinho (2005). His latest documentary, Sonic Mirror, explores different cultures through music and is centred around legendary jazz fusion drummer Billy Cobham.

Mika Kaurismäki earlier co-founded the well-known Moskova and Corono bars in the centre of Helsinki. Between 1999 and 2001, he also used to run a music club in Rio de Janeiro: Mika's Bar.

Bossa will likely officially open around the 15th of November, although the bar side of the restaurant will be taken into use already some time earlier.

Related:

Watching the sound – FREE!'s interview with Mika Kaurismäki 

Mika Kaurismäki – Official website

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Misc News

Next Bond theme by Ville Valo?

According to Daily Star columnist Kim Dawson, long-time Bond soundtrack writers Don Black and David Arnold have dumped British singer Amy Winehouse as their favourite to record the next 007 theme and now want Valo instead.

The Finnish rock singer was approached by the Bond team during a dinner at the BMI Awards in London on Tuesday (16.10), the tabloid’s columnist claimed. Valo attended the ceremony to collect an award for HIM’s hit song Wings of a Butterfly.

“David Arnold and Don Black were in deep conversation with Ville on the night,” Dawnson quoted a source she referred to only as ‘a slightly shaken but not stirred BMI spy’. “They love the song that won him an award. They think he has just the right ear to write a classic Bond hit with them.”

HIM manager Seppo Vesterinen only heard of the claims when he was asked for his comments by a Finnish journalist. “If the matter would have been under discussion, I would presume that I would know about it,” Vesterinen told STT from the United States.

HIM is currently on tour in North America. Earlier this year, Valo recorded Summer Wine, the soundtrack of German film Das Wilde Leben (2007), with Polish-born German actress Natalia Avelon.

The spy who shoved me – the column by Daily Star columnist Kim Dawson

HIM – official website
HIM – MySpace

Summer Wine – by Ville Valo & Natalia Avelon (YouTube)

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Misc News

New Finlandia prize for comics

The prize is partially funded by the City of Tampere‘s Luova Tampere (Creative Tampere) programme.

The winner of the prize is chosen in the same way as the receiver of its big namesake, the prestigious Finlandia Prize for Literature. Every year, the Tampere Kuplii comics association will name a selection committee that will choose a maximum of ten candidates from all the submitted comic works. The committee will then appoint a person who will make the final selection from the nominated works.

Anyone can propose a Finnish or Swedish language comic album from Finland for the prize. Also works in other languages will be taken into consideration by the committee.

The first Sarjakuva Finlandia will be presented on the 20th of April during the 2008 edition of the Tampere Kuplii (Tampere is bubbling) comics festival.

Sarjakuva Finlandia (in Finnish only)

Tampere Kuplii (mostly in Finnish)

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Misc News

Extensive Helene Schjerfbeck retrospective in Paris

The presentation, organised by the Hamburger Kunsthalle, is the first ever retrospective of Schjerfbeck’s art in France. It contains 125 paintings, watercolours and drawings as well as documentary material.

Helene Schjerfbeck (1862 – 1946) is one of the most acclaimed female painters from Northern Europe, and her unique, ascetic yet expressive style is drawing a lot of attention from outside Finland. Earlier, the exhibition already attracted nearly 200,000 visitors at the Gemeentemuseum at The Hague and the Kunsthalle in Hamburg.

The art on show in Paris is on loan from Helsinki’s Ateneum Art Museum and other museums in Finland and Sweden, as well as from private collections. Key works in the exhibition are The Convalescent (1888) and The Seamstress (1905) as well as Schjerfbeck’s imposing self-portraits, particularly those from her later years that approach the issues of ageing in a very bold and straightforward way.

The Helene Schjerfbeck exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne runs until the 13th of January, 2008.

 

Helene Schjerfbeck, a modernist observer of life – Virtual Finland

Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (in English)

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Misc News

Director Rauni Mollberg dead

Mollberg also worked as a radio and TV drama director with Finnish public broadcasting company YLE for nearly forty years. Between 1968-1986 he was the director of the theatrical department of YLE TV2.

Mollberg had been suffering from leukaemia for the past four years. He
passed away in a health centre in Loimaa, western Finland, on Thursday
morning (11.10.2007).

Rauni Mollberg – Wikipedia
Rauni Mollberg – Internet Movie Database (IMDB)

The Unknown Soldier (1985 film) – Wikipedia

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Misc News

Nightwish Nummer Eins in Germany

In Sweden the group currently stands at number 4, in Austria, the Netherlands and Greece at 5 and in Norway at number 7 of the official album charts.

In the UK, the album entered at number 25, a fact many newspapers and on line media in Finland have found worth dedicating separate articles to.

In their home country Finland, Dark Passion Play sold double platinum in record time and  went straight to the top of the album chart. Nightwish’s latest single "Amaranth" also tops the Finnish singles list.

The album has done less well in Belgium, Poland and Ireland, where it entered the charts at 36, 50 and 62 respectively.

The band from Kitee, southeast Finland, kicked off their first world tour with vocalist Annette with a sold-out concert in Tel Aviv last Saturday (6.10.2007). Next Monday the group will start the North-American leg of the tour in Springfield, USA.

Nightwish – official website

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Misc News

And the Nordic Council Film Prize goes to… Denmark

Kunsten at græde i kor, Schønau Fog’s directoral debut, tells about an 11-year-old boy’s attempts to keep his dysfunctional family together. The prize money will be shared between the director, scriptwriter Bo hr Hansen and the film’s producer, Thomas Stenderup.

The prize will be presented on the 31st of October during the annual session of the Nordic Council in Oslo.

Although member countries Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland can each choose two candidates for the Film Prize, the Finnish jury decided to only send in one film this year as it found Miehen Työ the clear candidate and couldn’t find another equally strong domestic film.

Earlier this year, Miehen Työ was also submitted as Finland’s selection for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and for the European Film Awards.

The Nordic Film Prize was awarded for the first time in 2002. The first – and so far only Finnish – winning film was Aki Kaurismäki’s Mies vailla menneisyyttä (The Man Without a Past).

Kunsten at græde i kor (The Art of Crying)

Miehen työ – Official site (in Finnish)
Miehen työ / Man's Job – Blind Spot Pictures

Nordic Council Film Prize

Related:

Miehen Työ up for Nordic film prize and Oscar

 

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Misc News

PM Vanhanen to face former girlfriend in court

Vanhanen and (then) Kuronen had a nine-month relationship after the Prime Minister and his wife Merja had announced their divorce in April 2005. After their romance ended, Kuronen frequently appeared in the media to talk about the relationship.

Complaint
In February 2007 Kuronen published her tell-all book, in which she exposed intimate details about the romance and the Prime Minister’s private life. After the publication of the exposé, Vanhanen filed a complaint against its publisher Kari Ojala with the police, who investigated the case to see if charges could be filed.

Vanhanen himself announced on Friday on his web log that his complaint had led to charges and expressed satisfaction that there would be more clarity about “where the boundary of privacy runs”.

Principle
"I want to discuss the principle at stake here,” Vanhanen said to YLE News on Sunday. “Apparently some people think that the prime minister doesn't have the courage to go to court over this, and it seems that there are no limits to what is acceptable. Now we'll see whether these limits exist.”

Sensitive-skinned
Susan Ruusunen and her publisher have denied that they have broken the law by publishing the book. “Our defence will leave from the freedom of speech,” Ojala said in a reaction to Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. “Finns should surely continue to be able to write memoirs in which other people are mentioned.”

“But what do you do when there’s a sensitive-skinned Prime Minister,” the publisher added.

Susan Kuronen changed her last name to Ruusunen, the maidenname of her grand grandmother, earlier this year.

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Misc News

Bob Geldof in Helsinki: trade vital for end to poverty

The world-famous activist also heavily criticized the ‘subsidies of surpluses’ in Europe, which, according to him, have a huge negative effect on the development of certain African countries. Geldof also stressed the importance of corporate social responsibility.

The seminar was aimed at business executives in Finland and was also attended by Finland’s President Tarja Halonen.

Watch video footage of Geldof’s speech

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Misc News

HIM sets Finnish record in U.S.

In the band’s home country, Venus Doom entered at number 2 in the official album chart, where it is currently standing at number 3, behind Tuhannen riemua by Lauri Tähkä & Elonkerjuu and Eppu Normaali’s Syvään päähän.

Venus Doom has also done relatively well in album charts in Sweden (14) and Italy (20), with more moderate successes in Britain (31), Australia (32), Ireland (36), the Netherlands (36) and New Zealand (38).

HIM’s previous album Dark Light made it to number 18 in the Billboard 200 chart.

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Misc News

Surprise performance Sigur Rós in Helsinki

The previously announced screening of the documentary about Sigur Rós’ home coming tour on Thursday the 28th of September at Andorra cinema has been cancelled.

Home – Sigur Rós will see its world premiere at the Reykjavík International Film Festival in Iceland, three days ahead of the Finnish premiere in Helsinki.

People who have tickets for the screening at Andorra can buy tickets for the Sigur Rós gig and closing screening at the pre-sale on Wednesday the 26th of September. The next day tickets will become available to others as well.

Sigur Rós last performed in Finland during two sold-out concerts at Helsinki’s Kulttuuritalo in 2005.


Sigur Rós:
official site | MySpace | photo blog

Heima / Home – Sigur Rós: trailer [Quicktime, 4:17 min.]

Rakkautta & Anarkiaa 20th Helsinki International Film Festival

 

Related:

Love, Cinema and Anarchy

Categories
Misc News

Miehen Työ up for Nordic film prize and Oscar

The winner of the Nordic prize (worth 350,000 Danish crowns, or about 47,000 euros) is chosen from a total of nine nominated films from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland, usually two per country. The jury decided to let only one film represent Finland this year, however. According to a Finnish jury member to YLE News, Miehen työ was a clear choice by itself, and a second, equally strong candidate could not be found.

This year’s winner will be announced on the 9th of October. The prize will be awarded on the 31st of October.

The Oscar nominations will be announced on the 22nd of January and the award gala will be held on the 24th of February.

The film
Miehen työ is a film about family man Juha (Tommi Korpela) who is fired from his job at a concrete factory, a fact he wants to keep secret from his wife. In order to support his family, he ends up working as a male prostitute. The script for the film was written by Salmenperä. Petri Jokiranta and Tero Kaukomaa were the producers.

The Council

The Nordic Council was formed in 1952 as a forum for parliamentary co-operation between the five nations and three autonomous regions (Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland) that make up the Nordic region. Besides the film prize, the Council, made up of  87 elected members from the national parliaments, also awards prizes for literature, environment and music.

Last year’s winner of the Nordic Council Film Prize was the Swedish film Zozo by Josef Fares (director and scriptwriter) and Anna Anthony (producer).

European Film Awards
Miehen Työ is also on the selection list for the European Film Awards. The nominees for the Awards, voted by the members of the European Film Academy, will be announced at the Sevilla Festival de Cine Europeo in Spain on the 3rd of November. The winners will be presented at the 20th European Film Awards ceremony in Berlin on December 1st.

Miehen työ – Official site (in Finnish)
Miehen työ / Man's Job – Blind Spot Pictures

Nordic Council Film Prize
All nominations for the Nordic Council Film Prize 2007

European Film Awards (European Film Academy)

Academy Awards (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)

Related:

Finnish gigolo – FREE! Magazine's review of Miehen työ