A Swedish film’s global success boosted by Finnish expertise

When Swedish producer Fredrik Zander was looking for funding and talent to make his Cannes-nominated film – he definitely wanted Finland in the mix.

The Boy from Heaven is a Swedish-produced, Arabic language film by leading Swedish director Tarik Saleh, and is a main competition selection at this year’s Cannes film festival. Set in Cairo but shot in Istanbul, the film’s post-production work was done mostly in Finland. Producer Fredrik Zander was eager to tell how this truly global project came to fruition – with some expert help from the Finns.

Zander explains, “We knew from the beginning that it would be quite a challenge to finance an Arabic-speaking film at the level we wanted to do this film. Most of our funding came from Sweden where our film company is based, but very early in the process Post Control – the post production house that along with Bufo, our Finnish co-producer, became our Finnish partners for the film.

Post Control approached us and made it clear they were extremely keen on being part of it. While we’d not worked with them before, we immediately felt they were the perfect partner for us. Post Control has a reputation for being a high-quality company, and I already knew some of their key people. When you work on a film that has very high ambitions and is going to have an international release, you choose companies that work at a certain level – which Post Control has. Simply put, they are very good at what they do.”

Zander continues, “We knew we needed to do the actual shooting of the film in a place that would feel like Cairo – as shooting in Cairo was not possible. We decided to shoot the film in Istanbul, but our post-production work fit perfectly in Finland, with regard to both our quality requirements and the budget we had, and because we also got very fast and efficient funding approval from Business Finland for the film – with the requirement that a certain part of the budget then had to be spent in Finland.”

The art of the (film) deal

Zander explains that finances from any country for the kind of film his team was making is linked directly with contracting film services from that country: “So of course it’s important in this sort of equation to not just go for the money, but to go with a country in which you are confident you can get the quality of people that you want to work with. So, both factors are important – the availability of financing, and the technical and professional skills of the people from that particular national film industry.

In Finland, the process of getting funding, in our experience, is swift – and reliable. With the Finns, you apply, get quick answers, and then you know that the money will come. When I work with Nordic countries – including Finland – the combination of expertise and price (with the price actually a bit lower than in some of the larger Western European countries) is among the best in the world.”

Great films require great people

In addition to some Finnish funding, the film also benefited from world-class Finnish talent – including some Finnish actors and crew members on the set in Turkey. Zander emphasizes, “I want to mention that we also had an absolutely great Finnish DIT (Digital Imaging Technician) on the set in Istanbul – in fact, probably the best one I’ve had, ever. He was amazing. All the Finns were extremely professional, and we are super-impressed with everything we have gotten from Finland, in terms of communication, professionalism – everything – so having Finns on board has been a real pleasure.”

Zander continues, “Over my 25 years in the business I have often worked with Finnish film professionals on productions, and my feeling is that the way Swedish and Finnish film people approach film production is quite similar. We like to work in smaller teams, and we take on multiple roles and functions. I was working in the US for three years, and it’s a completely different set-up when it comes to crews, etc. There, you have so many more people, and each person does just one thing. In Finland and Sweden – and to some extent in Norway and Denmark as well – we have much in common with regard to how we think about producing a film. So that’s another reason why it has been a successful collaboration between us – we began with quite similar views on how things should work.”

Asked about what the success of The Boy from Heaven suggests about the future of filmmaking, Zander is quick and confident in his reply. “Look at this year’s Cannes Festival. There are three Swedish directors in the main competition – out of 20 films, and this has never happened before – and none of these three are in Swedish. That pretty unique! But this level of international cooperation is pretty much how the world increasingly looks – we make films more and more in a truly global environment.”