5. War and Peace: Finland Among Contending Nations

Towards the end of the 1930s, the Depression was over and the film business boomed, as people again had the money to go to the cinema. The number of cinemas increased as well as the number of film premieres. Hollywood films dominated the screens, but cinemas offered a wide variety of films from different countries such as Germany, the UK, France, Sweden—and Finland. Two major companies in Finland, Suomi-Filmi and Suomen Filmiteollisuus, established a studio-like production system with a growing number of film professionals. From 1936 onwards both studios started to produce several films in parallel, which quickly increased the number of domestic premieres per year. In addition, minor film companies such as Jäger-Filmi Oy (1938–1969) and Eloseppo Oy (1938–1942) and the filmmaker Teuvo Tulio (1911–2001) actively made films, although less regularly. All in all, these emerging Finnish film companies laid a foundation for the studio era of Finnish cinema, which lasted until the early 1960s, when the studio-based production system gave way to a new production system steered by state film policy.