- published: 23 Apr 2014
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The Finnish cinema has a long history, with the first public screenings starting almost as early as modern motion picture technology was invented (the first screening in the world was in 1895, in Finland in 1896). It took over a decade before the first Finnish film was produced and screened in 1907. After these first steps of Finnish cinema, the progress was very slow. After 1907 there were two periods (1909–1911 and 1917–1918) when no Finnish films were produced. This was partly caused by the political situation, as Finland held a status as an autonomous part of Russia and was thus influenced by the worldwide political situation.
In 1917 Finland became an independent country and in 1918 there was a civil war. After the political situation had settled and stabilized, Finnish society and its cultural life began to develop. This was very clear with cinematic arts. More films were produced and they became an important part of Finnish society. The culmination of this development came soon after the silent era, around the 1940s and 1950s, when three major studios were producing films and competing for the market. When society changed in the 1960s, partly because of political trends and partly because of new forms of entertainment, like television, the appeal of films was threatened, practically all studios were closed, and films became political and too artistic for the masses, as commercial production was considered a thing of the past and distasteful. Few filmmakers were opposed to this development, and kept producing popular films that were bashed by the critics but loved by the people.
Finland (i/ˈfɪnlənd/; Finnish: Suomi [suomi]; Swedish: Finland [ˈfɪnland]), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, a peninsula with Gulf of Finland to the south and Gulf of Bothnia to the west. It has land borders with Sweden and Norway to the north and Russia to the east. Finland is part of the geographic region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia and parts of Russia.
Finland's population is 5.5 million (2014), staying roughly on the same level with only about 9% increase in 24 years since the last economic depression in 1990. The majority live in the southern regions. The single largest group of foreigners living in Finland are Russians and Estonians, 36% of all of the foreigners (2014). In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 317 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, which produces a third of the country's GDP. Other large cities include Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti, and Kuopio.