Page 29 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

Film Festival'. In his report, Riskala accounts for the growth of the Festival during the last fourteen
years, while also linking the event's emergence to wider exhibition strategies in Finnish film culture.
Not only has the Espoo Cine Festival established itself as the primary showcase for contemporary
European cinema within Finland, but over 80 per cent of the films shown at the event are of
European origin. While Riskala is keen to acknowledge the increasing importance of non-Western
fantasy cinema on Finnish film culture, his account also makes cleat the educational strategies
central to the festival's wider critical acceptance. As with other exhibitors' accounts outlined in this
section, Riskala outlines the importance of the European Federation of the Fantastic Film Festivals
on the programming, retrospective and educational strands offered by the Espoo Cine organisers.
These 'fantastic forums' are held via a series of seminars and panel discussions on both aesthetic and
production-based topics that relate to the genres under review. Some of the issues included in these
discussion slots have included scriptwriting, sound editing and the role of special effects in fantastic
film, with visiting directors, SFX masters and technicians attending to give their professional input.
Beyond a consideration of the extent to which the Federation's policies have affected the growth and
structure of this Finnish event, this chapter also discusses the Festival in the context of wider national
debates around censorship (particularly addressing state policies up until 2001). As Riskala notes,
during this era of censorship, the Espoo Cine Festival remained the only place to see 'dark and violent
celluloid creations' that Europe had to offer. Although censorship issues have eased in recent years,
he concludes that the Espoo Cine Festival has retained an unorthodox edge, where it is able to court
cinematic creativity and controversy in equal measure.
The final festival report compiled for this volume takes the form of an interview with Magnus
Paulsson, the International Director of the Fantastisk Film Festival in Sweden. In his article, 'The
Fantastisk Film Festival: An Overview and Interview with Magnus Paulsson', Xavier Mendik discovers
that the event sets a broad remit for the types of subject matter they will exhibit. These include
films that lie 'between dream and reality, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the possible and the
impossible. The aim of the Festival is to help stretch the limits of the imagination, and to reinforce the
intrinsic value of imagination in films.' The Festival's philosophy of not setting narrow limits on what
it intends to screen partly explains its successful growth over the last eight years, something which
Paulsson expands upon in his interview. As with other festivals outlined in this volume, the focus of
the Fantastisk Film Festival remains the large number of European films that it screens, though as with
Tuomas Riskala of Espoo Cine, Paulsson also admits being increasingly drawn to the cult traditions
that are emerging from Asia. Beyond a wide variety of quirky and off-beat productions that make
it into the Festival's feature film competition, the event is marked by a progressive attitude towards
documentary and fiction shorts, which are also primarily European based. As Paulsson explains,
the short film can in many respects be seen as 'the perfect cinematic format' in its compression of
creativity into a tightly constrained timeframe and the short selection proves to be ever popular with
the Fantastisk Film Festival's audience, who vote for their own selection of favourites (alongside a
panel of judges) on an annual basis. As well as outlining the factors that affect the programming of
both the feature and short competitions at the Festival, Paulsson also explains the educational events
that accompany the event on a regular basis. These include lectures and seminars given in conjunction
with the Film Studies Department at Lund University as well as art exhibitions and musical events, all

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