FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | Renny Harlin returns to Finland for 'Mannerheim' biopic |
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| Written by the editor | |
| Thursday, 08 November 2007 | |
 A couple of years ago, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven returned to his home country to make Zwartboek (Black Book), a film in his own language made in his own country, his first after some twenty years in Hollywood. Now Finland's Renny Harlin, whose Hollywood action films such as Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger have travelled the globe, is set to return to his native shores as well for another ambitious historical war film: Mannerheim. The film will recount the life of one of Finland's most important political and military men: Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, who was Regent of Finland in 1918 and 1919, and President of Finland between 1944 and 1946. Harlin's €10 million epic will be a sprawling military and political biography that will span the first fifty years of the twentieth century. It will cover the Swedish native-speaker's military career that started in Russia's Imperial Army and also saw his involvement in the Russian Revolution, the Finnish Civil War/World War One and the Second World War. The project is planned to start shooting in 2008, when the country that recently voted the leader as history's greatest Finn, will celebrate his 140th birthday. No word yet on who might be cast for what could be the role of a lifetime. Mannerheim will be a major international co-production in the original languages spoken in the leader's environment: Finnish, Swedish, Russian, English and even Polish. The film should be ready for a theatrical release in Finland in 2009. (source: nordisk film og tv fond; photo: Wikipedia) |
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