Tampere Film Festival kicks off

The Tampere Film Festival has begun and looks set to wow audiences with eclectic competition programmes and a number of special retrospectives

In the International Competition, the festival has a number of films that are already proving popular on the circuit including Green Screen Gringo, Ronny Trocker’s Estate and Ali Asgari’s and Farnoosh Samadi’s Silence. The entire competition selection is a heady mix of animation, experimental, documentary and fiction films.

In the National Competition, there will be eagerly anticpated new films from Jenni Toivoniemi – whose film The Date won the Special Jury Prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival - and Finlandia-katsaus No. 701 the latest documentary from renowned filmmakers Hannes Vartiainen and Pekka Veikkolainen

Daniel Mulloy, riding a huge wave of popularity thanks to Home, will be on hand for a retrospective of his work as will Swedish filmmaker Jens Assur who has a masterclass among with the screening of his films. Canadian filmmaker Caroline Monnet has a retrospective in the Indigenous Peoples theme.

The DDD60- project of the film festival focuses on virtual reality from many angles. The Open Eyes seminar will highlight the different aspects of production, technology and storytelling in the 360º world. There will be talks from the top names in the industry, such as representatives from Nexus and Nokia and from filmmakers that have already switched to VR-cinema.

Tampere Film Festival also hosts the first 360º film competition in Finland. Almost 100 films were submitted for the VR competition with six of the most interesting ones making it to the finals.

There are around 130 screenings throughout the week in addition to an abundance of side programmes such as seminars, discussions and clubs. The programme spreads out from Plevna and Niagara cinemas to Pakkahuone and to Tullikamari Klubi.

The festival will continue until 12th March