FINNISH ANIMATION: general research

just a bit of general noodling about on my research on Finnish animation (which is purely, ashamedly through that wonderful digital resource we call the world wide webs)

Finnanimation is pretty interesting. a non profit association, it has a comprehensive list of all the Finnish animation production companies that have joined it as members (it's also supported by the Finnish Minister for Education and Culture, which makes it pretty official).

a worthwhile nugget: the president for Animation Magazine visited the country in 2009 and wrote an article here

also, Nick Dorra has some interesting animation stuff on his blog (although it hasn't been updated since 2011, the article on the Finnish animation environment is especially interesting)

some excerpts:

The studios are doing well, the Finnish animation sector in general is growing at a good pace. Animation contributes 32% of the Finnish audiovisual exports (survey 2011 by FAVEX)

(so while I don't necessarily know much Finnish animation, it seems to be doing pretty well! it might not be as burgeoning as say, Belgian animation but it's certainly not in a complete drought)

The financial environment is that of a small European country. This means that there is a limited national audience (5 million inhabitants), forcing producers to seek out coproduction options. Like elsewhere in the Nordic countries, programmes are subtitled, not dubbed, which makes for easy intertanional transactions.

The Finnish Film Foundation supports short and feature films reasonably well, but takes a much more reserved role with TV projects (usually only helping to finance development and a trailer or pilot). The Centre for Audiovisual Arts (AVEK) supports small scale demo projects tailored to the new media / transmedia niche. TEKES, “The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation” also supports some projects, especially with a more technological focus.

The film investment business in Finland is quite unevolved. However there have been some recent developments and one interesting player to look at is Mediatonic.
Interesting stuff! so there's some funding there and it's doing okay. I'm going to have to noodle around more (something I'm interested in is whether, as in certain schools, continents or countries there's a definite, 'flavour' of animation)