How long the audience s romance with domestic films will continue is anybody s guess. Lapland's gold rush unfortunately falls short from the interesting characters and the epic proportions it is hoping to capture. Veikko Aaltonen hits the spot with his film Rakkaudella Maire, about a bourgeois woman's loneliness that evolves into tragedy, a woman feeding off other people's tragedies duly reported by the tabloids. Aaltonen has made a film on a truly contemporary subject which unfortunately cannot be said of all Finnish filmmakers. It looks like Finnish filmmakers are still relying heavily on literature as a subject matter.
Many films are either based on a novel or a play, original screenplays are relatively rare.
One of the most interesting films in postproduction is Rolling Stone - Aleksis Kiven el m by Jari Halonen, the former enfant terrible of Finnish theatre. The director of films like Back to USSR, Christmas Party and Lipton Cockton, he is guaranteed to make a provocative film out of the life of the most respected Finnish writer Aleksis Kivi, who has acquired the status of a national treasure and who died ill-famed in poverty. He confesses to having shamelessly exploited with the permission of those involved his own article for Variety International Film Guide 2000 edition for this article. Even if Renny Harlin is as Hollywood as a filmmaker can get, he still keeps visiting his native Finland. His latest action thriller Deep Blue Sea was launched at a new festival in Savonlinna.