Finnish Film Foundation’s Facts & Figures 2023 publication brings together the most important film statistics from last year
The Finnish Film Foundation’s Facts & Figures 2023 statistical publication contains the most important film statistics on the Film Foundation’s support activities, film production, distribution, and exhibition, as well as gender equality. This year, the publication also has its own section for diversity statistics.
The statistical publication also includes, for the first time, a broad overview of diversity in Finnish films and film crews in the 2020s. The Finnish Film Foundation has been collecting diversity statistics as part of the mandatory final reporting of projects that have received production support since 2020. The statistics published include data from 127 projects, which well represent the films supported by the Film Foundation in the early part of this decade. Numerous graphs and tables examine e.g. geographical distribution of shooting locations for domestic films, the visibility of different minority groups in the roles of fictional films and the languages spoken in the films. In addition, the statistics look at the gender and age distributions of different professional groups in film projects.
Last year, 7.2 million people went to the cinema all over Finland
2023 was the first year of the current decade without any restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The total number of admissions for the year was 7.2 million, which is 1.4 million more than in 2022 and about twice the numbers from 2020 and 2021. However, the number of cinema admissions still remained 15% below the time before the pandemic.
There were as many as 227 new releases in 2023 in Finnish cinemas. In addition, hundreds of films previously unseen on Finnish screens were shown at special screenings and festivals. The biggest hit of the year, Barbie, gathered more than 680,000 cinema admissions and became the 11th most watched movie in Finland in recorded history. There were 47 domestic new releases in national cinema distribution during the year, and the most successful of them was Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, which also garnered a lot of international attention and awards, with 254,831 admissions.
The Facts & Figures publication also includes screening figures for domestic films at international film festivals. Last year’s festival hits abroad were Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves and the short film Blush – An Extraordinary Voyage directed by Iiti Yli-Harja, both of which were shown at around 50 different festivals around the world.
The number of grant applications received by the Film Foundation continues to grow
The statistical publication also sheds light on the film foundation’s support activities from last year. In 2023, the foundation granted almost 23.6 million euros in various subsidies for the film industry, which is more than 1.5 million euros less than in 2022. The number of applications increased by about 18 percent compared to the previous year. The total amount of support applied for was almost 83 million euros. In 2023, the pass rate for applications in the production support categories was only 28%.
The Finnish Film Foundation is responsible for the official statistics of the film industry in Finland. You can find the Facts & Figures publications of previous years as well as a wide range of other statistical information on the production, distribution and exhibition of films in the statistics section of the Finnish Film Foundation’s website.
For more information:
Petri Peltonen
Statistics and Research Specialist
tel. +358 9 6220 3034
petri.peltonen@ses.fi