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IRON SKY - a sci-fi comedy from Finland

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Post by FinnFreak Thu Feb 09, 2012 10:15 pm

IRON SKY - a sci-fi comedy from Finland Iron_sky_poster_small

Iron Sky Official Theatrical Trailer [HD] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_IndUbcxc


www.ironsky.net


As World War II comes to an end in 1945, Hans Kammler and other German scientists make a breakthrough in anti-gravity research. From a secret base in the Antarctic, Nazi spaceships are sent to the "dark side" of the Moon to establish the military base "Schwarze Sonne". Their plan is to build a powerful fleet and return to conquer Earth. The film is set in the year 2018 when their descendants finally return...


Iron Sky is a forthcoming Finnish science-fiction comedy film from the makers of Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning. The film is directed by Timo Vuorensola and produced by Tero Kaukomaa of Blind Spot Pictures production company. Samuli Torssonen is responsible for the computer generated effects of the film. The screenwriters are Johanna Sinisalo and Michael Kalesniko. The film is financed by Energia Productions, Blind Spot Pictures, New Holland Pictures and 27 Films production companies, and it is scheduled to be released on April 4, 2012.



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Post by FinnFreak Thu Feb 09, 2012 10:53 pm

The Guardian - Wednesday 8 February 2012


Finnish sci-fi Nazi movie is hot ticket at Berlinale

Iron Sky, which imagines Nazi invasion from secret moon base,
sells more tickets than Werner Herzog and Angelina Jolie films



By Helen Pidd


Among the worthy films being premiered at the Berlin film festival over the next 10 days are an epic tracing China's history; three documentaries about the Fukushima nuclear disaster; Werner Herzog's look at death row; and Angelina Jolie's take on the Bosnian war.

But one of the most popular films on the day that tickets went on sale was a Finnish sci-fi comedy about Nazis living on the dark side of the moon.

Iron Sky tells how Hitler's top scientists moved to a lunar military base known as the Black Sun shortly after the end of the second world war. For more than 70 years boffins beavered away on a fleet of spaceships that one day would return to Earth and finish what the Nazis started. In 2018 the invasion begins.

The Finnish-German-Australian production was the second most popular film when the box office opened, according to Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper. It was beaten to the top spot by Don 2 – The King is Back, the latest from the Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan. Fans of the Indian heartthrob camped out in a shopping centre for three days and nights to get tickets for the film, which sold out in minutes.

Elsewhere, it was business as usual at the traditionally serious festival, also called the Berlinale. This year's event, the 62nd, focuses on social upheaval and political awakening, screening documentaries and fictional works from Arab film-makers, which trace the turbulent progress of the 2011 uprisings across the region and explore political and philosophical questions left in the wake of demonstrations.

The Egyptian film Reporting a Revolution, directed by Bassam Mortada, follows six journalists on the frontline during 18 days of protests. In The Shadow of a Man, directed by Hanan Abdalla, has four women talking about how a new society should look.

Last year the festival, well known for engaging in political debate, became a platform for protest against the arrest of the Iranian director Jafar Panahi. Accused of inciting opposition protests in 2009 and making a film without permission, Panahi was banned from travelling outside Iran so was unable to take his seat on the Berlinale jury.

This year the festival will continue the debate about the position of the artist in society with the international premiere of a documentary about the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

But it's not all doom and gloom. The organisers have coaxed some of Hollywood's biggest names to sprinkle a little stardust. Jolie will be hawking In the Land of Blood and Honey, her directorial debut about the Bosnian civil war, while Javier Bardem will show the documentary he produced, Sons of the Clouds: the Last Colony, about a forgotten colonial war in the western Sahara. Meryl Streep will sweep into town to accept an honorary Golden Bear – Berlin's answer to Cannes' Palme d'Or – in recognition of her reign at the top of Hollywood's tree, covering more than 30 years.

The biggest screams on the red carpet are likely to be reserved for Robert Pattinson, the British dreamboat who stars in the wildly popular vampire series, Twilight. The teen idol is expected to turn up to promote his latest movie, an adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's novel Bel Ami, in which he plays a scoundrel who rises through the ranks of 19th-century Parisian society by manipulating and seducing women.

Berlin has a surprisingly starry jury. Jake Gyllenhaal and Charlotte Gainsbourg join the Dutch photographer and film-maker Anton Corbijn (who had a hit with the Joy Division film Control) on the international panel, chaired by the veteran British director Mike Leigh.

One film vying for the award, Les Adieux à la Reine (Farewell My Queen), starring Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette, will launch the festival on Thursday. The Berlinale, which runs until 19 February, is ranked as one of the world's top film festivals.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/feb/08/sci-fi-nazi-berlin-film-festival?newsfeed=true



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Post by FinnFreak Sun Feb 12, 2012 8:43 pm

Twitchfilm.com - February 11, 2012


Berlin 2012 Review: IRON SKY


IRON SKY - a sci-fi comedy from Finland 1305555475544?ts=795
The Iron Sky stars Julia Dietze, Peta Sergeant, Stephanie Paul and Christopher Kirby
at the world premiere in Berlin's Friedrichstadtpalast.



By Brian Clark



I'm torn about how to review Iron Sky. Is it really fair to criticize a movie about Nazis from the dark side of the moon invading the earth for being too goofy? Hell, is it really fair to criticize that movie for anything at all?

Before I get to that question though, let me back up and point out that, while we have gleefully been covering the development of this film since 2007, it's often a lot more fun to talk about concepts like moon Nazis then to actually watch said concepts stretched out to feature length. And so, the Finish duo behind the cult Star Trek parody, Star Wreck, deserve kudos for delivering a reasonably fun movie that at least strives for more than repeating the same joke over and over for an hour and a half.

Some may be content to leave it there -- it really is a perfectly serviceable moon Nazi movie. Go to a midnight showing with some friends and some beers and you probably won't feel like you've wasted your night. But what's frustrating about Iron Sky is that it occasionally approaches greatness, and then promptly falls back into well-worn Sci-Fi comedy clichés. Until now, I hadn't thought about the fact that sci-fi comedy clichés even exist, but I promise you, they do!

The film cuts right to the chase, opening with an American landing on the moon that's cut brutally short by the moon Nazis. This scene plays out with a near-perfect blend of comedy and menace, and in this scene at least, director Timo Vuorensola has the visual pizzazz to back it up. Almost immediately, the plot gets too convoluted to really even try to relate, suffice to say, the Nazis eventually invade the earth.

However, after the assured opening, the movie oscillates wildly from parody to dated political satire to reasonably clever political satire to straight up sci-fi action and back to parody. Nothing is ever quite as confrontational or audacious as you'd really hope, given the material, but there are some inspired bits, such as when the Nazis find great success within the U.S. political system. In fact, there were several jokes that made me laugh long past the punchline, but alas, they were few and far between.

The execution of the movie is wildly uneven too. A fair amount of the CGI and Sci-Fi action is impressive and even convincing, but then a scene will pop up where the costumes and set look like leftovers from a SNL skit. And even if the CGI looks good for the film's budget level, there's far too much explosive action. No one goes to see a space Nazi movie for the kick-ass intergalactic battles. We've got the entire American studio system pumping billions of dollars into the Sci-fi action industry - A movie with Space Nazis should bring even more fresh ideas to the table, not low-budget retreads of scenes from Independence Day.

But probably the biggest problem with the film is that a large amount of the humor is dated, most likely due to its long production timeline (we've been covering its development on this site for nearly five years). This is almost strictly Bush-era satire and it's honestly staggering how irrelevant and stale it all feels today. When I first saw that the President of the United States in the film was a thinly-disguised version of Sarah Palin, I shrugged it off as a throwaway joke. But sadly, she ends up playing a pretty major role in the film. And a plot point about the Nazis needing an iPad to power their death machine is just embarrassing.

Really though, Iron Sky is not an unqualified failure. It's got Udo Kier, a moon-base shaped like a swastika, and a sexy, endearing performance by Julia Dietze, so it's certainly not all bad. But Shaun of the Dead it ain't, and at the end of the day, it probably is more fun to talk about the film than actually watch it. The space Nazi movie in your head is probably better than the one on screen.


http://twitchfilm.com/reviews/2012/02/berlin-2012-review-iron-sky.php



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Post by FinnFreak Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:04 am

Screen Daily:


Iron Sky


By Mark Adams, chief film critic


Director: Timo Vuorensola. Finland-Australia-Germany. 2012. 93mins


Iron Sky revels in its B-movie status, and tip-toeing a fine line in political incorrectness it unleashes sci-fi special effects mayhem onto an unsuspecting world…well, certainly a world that has no idea that a secret Nazi space programme evaded destruction at the end of World War II and relocated to the Dark Side of the Moon awaiting the perfect moment for the return of the Fourth Reich.



The concept for this freewheeling sci-fi comedy is a strong one and for a good deal of the time it delivers good-natured genre entertainment, with the cast sensibly taking it all very seriously and the film punctuated with some impressive action effects the belie the its modest budget. Genre fans should lap up the film, and while lack of known stars and the fact it is partially subtitled should impact on its ability to break out there is no denying the film’s marketing buzz.

Though the majority of Iron Sky’s €7.5million budget came from traditional sources, close to €1million came from Iron Sky fans, and the social networking support for the film should not be underestimated.

The secret Nazi base on the moon is deemed under invasion when American astronaut/male model James Washington (Kirby) ands his Lunar capsule a bit too close to the Nazi’s helium mining operation. He is captured and dragged off to be interrogated by Nazis who think he may be part of an advance force…when in fact he is only there as part of a publicity stunt for the US President (Paul).

When they see then computing power in his humble mobile phone they realize only on Earth can they find the processing power to finally launch their flagship spacecraft, the massive Gotterdammerung, so two Nazi officers, ruthlessly ambitious Klaus Adler (Otto) and idealistic English-speaking teacher Renate Richter (Dietze), are sent to earth to snag some more mini-computers.

But Klaus has other plans and initially allying himself with the President and her super-sexy advisor Vivian Wagner (Sergeant) he plots to usurp the Moon Fuhrer (a nicely droll performance by cult favourite Udo Kier) and take over for himself.

There are some delicious moments – such as petite and striking Julia Dietze showing her classroom of children a clip from Chaplin’s The Great Dictator to show the benevolent ambitions of Hitler – balanced by some truly impressive special effects. The Nazi invasion of the Earth, with giant zeppelins dragging moon rock to catapult at the planet, and the space dog fights (with the spacecraft USS George W Bush leading the fight back) quite brilliant. Another nice moment comes when it turns out that all of the Earth’s countries have in fact armed their spacecraft, much to the annoyance of the Americans…apart from modest Finland.

In fact, when these Nazis are still spacebound the film is at its best. When it gets to Earth the story struggles to find its momentum, despite the game efforts of Gotz Otto (who played Herr Stamper in Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies) and Julia Dietze (called upon to play her role demure-but-sexy) who hold he film together.

There is a lot of smart sci-fi fun to be had with Iron Sky which nicely blends its comic-book sensibilities with B-movie action. The attack scenes are as good - at times - as those in Skyline and Battle: Los Angeles, and the knowing sexuality and broad un-PC humour slots in nicely with the ludicousness of Nazi’s driving motorcycles and old Volkswagons across the lunar landscape.


http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/iron-sky/5037916.article



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Post by FinnFreak Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:49 pm

Screen Daily - 16 February, 2012


Iron Sky confirms US, Israel deals

Trailer had 5 million views in six days



By Wendy Mitchell


Iron Sky has closed further deals for Stealth Media in Berlin, led by a North American deal with Entertainment One.

For Israel, the film has now sold to Shoval.

The trailer for the film, about Nazis on the moon, released on YouTube during the Berlinale, has now seen more than five million views in six days. That makes the trailer more popular than those for Hollywood blockbusters. “It feels great to beat these films that have already spent more on marketing that the entire budget of Iron Sky. I see it as a sign of democratisation of entertainment, where the internet means a Finnish film can capture the interest of the viewing public. This is a victory to all European and independent filmmakers, and it’s all thanks to our active online community” says director Timo Vuorensola.

He added: “Iron Sky is for sure an audience film; we’ve been ending every screening here in Berlin with huge ovations, and the theaters are packed.”

The film next travels to SXSW before heading to Tampere, Finland.

Iron Sky marches to theaters in April 2012.

The world sales is handled by Stealth Media Group.


http://www.screendaily.com/news/distribution/iron-sky-confirms-us-israel-deals/5038145.article?referrer=RSS&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=1&WT.tsrc=twitter&WT.mc_id=twitter_twitterfeed_latestnews


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Post by FinnFreak Tue Feb 21, 2012 8:06 pm

The Independent - Monday 20 February 2012

The sci-fi movie Hollywood would not dare to make

A spoof film about Nazis living on the Moon has become an unlikely hit


IRON SKY - a sci-fi comedy from Finland IA20.40_-174411


By Kaleem Aftab


A Finnish sci-fi film about Nazis who have been living on the dark side of the moon since the end of the Second World War has turned out to be the unlikely hot ticket of this year's Berlin Film Festival.

Iron Sky sold out faster than movies directed by Angelina Jolie and Werner Herzog – a remarkable feat for a film that only received financing after appealing for donations on the internet, which raised $1 million of the $7.5 million budget.

Made by the first-time director Timo Vuorensola, the only cast member with any sort of name recognition is the German cult star Udo Kier, stalwart of vampire and Von Trier movies, who plays Wolfgang Kortzfleisch, the leader of the Moon Nazis. He and his fellow Nazis are discovered when the President of the United States (Stephanie Paul), a gym-loving mother modelled on Sarah Palin, is advised that sending astronauts back to the Moon will help to boost her chance of re-election.

Set in 2018 and shot in a slapdash style, Iron Sky uses the idea of Moon Nazis invading New York to create a burning satire on American politics and spin. At times, the acting and dialogue is clunky, but the special effects belie the tiny budget. This is schlock, over-the-top storytelling at its riotous and enjoyable best. Hilarious comparisons are made between the rhetoric of Nazi speeches and American presidential campaigns. As a pastiche on Nazis, it's cleverer and much more savvy than Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.

No attempts are made to explain how the Nazis got to the Moon, nor how they survive. Much is made of how technologically inept the Nazi's mad scientist is – he's wowed by the power of Washington's smart phone – yet moments later the Nazis are flying to Earth on a fleet of heavily armed spaceships. Rather than get bogged down in laborious explanations the action is made up of a series of humorous set-pieces, with a central romance in which the perfect Aryan female (Julie Dietze) falls in love with a black astronaut.

It's the type of film that Hollywood studios would not touch with a bargepole. As such, the film-makers were forced to go underground. The internet has been buzzing about Iron Sky for months. A trailer released a few days before the premiere in Berlin received a million hits in less than 24 hours. The film-makers have cleverly made up for the small marketing campaign with a perfectly executed viral attack on social-media sites and those that have helped to fund the film have also helped promote it.

"The internet played a big role in the film-making process. The idea was to make the production process itself a part of the story and it's a big marketing aspect as well," says Vuorensola. "It was funny to be so popular. It's hard to understand how we got so big."

Using the internet for movie financing is an increasingly common phenomenon. There are a growing number of websites such as Kickstarter that aim to help film-makers find money for their films. Kickstarter works by setting a time limit and a funding goal: if the target is not reached, the money is returned to potential investors.

"You have to find a way to pitch the film in a way that is really easy to understand and easy to grasp," says Vuorensola. "The attention span on the internet is so short you have to grab them with something. Every movie has something you can grab them with and you need to unearth that. For this film, it felt so organic to use the internet community to fund and support it."

The only downside is that the sheer number of investors makes the end credits incredibly long.

'Iron Sky' is released on 4 April.


http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-scifi-movie-hollywood-would-not-dare-to-make-7209270.html



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Post by faithfully Thu Feb 23, 2012 6:43 pm

Is this movie good? Very Happy
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Post by FinnFreak Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:20 pm

You like sci-fi, HUGE space battles & humour..?


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Post by faithfully Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:47 pm

I think it will be very popular when it hits the screens Very Happy
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Post by FinnFreak Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:49 pm

Iron Sky Sneak Peek #13 - The First Four Minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=uX2cS8wvQHI


Since its premier at the Berlin International Film Festival one month ago, the Finnish-German-Australian science fiction comedy Iron Sky has been sold to more than 70 countries for showings at over 1,000 cinemas. Its Finnish director credits the online fan community for sparking what looks to be a major film success.

Cinema distribution of Iron Sky has been confirmed for at least the following countries: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, German-speaking regions of Switzerland, Austria, the UK, France, the former Yugoslav republics, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Japan, China (contingent on censor's approval), South Korea, Thailand, Israel, the USA, Canada, Indonesia, Greece, India and Hungary.


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Post by FinnFreak Wed Mar 21, 2012 1:34 am

news.com.au - March 20, 2012


Iron Sky - YouTubers fire up over whether Nazis could actually shoot guns on the moon


By Peter Farquhar


NEXT month, an alarming new movie may or may not reach Australian cinemas called Iron Sky.
In it, Nazis have been gathering on the dark side of the moon since they made a breakthrough in anti-gravity research way back in 1945 and sent a few spaceships up there for safekeeping.

And apparently, just six years from now, they will return to Earth to finish the job their Fuhrer failed to complete in 1945.

The movie has Australian backing, cost somewhere around $10 million in crowd-sourced funding to make and is likely to arrive with the kind of incredulous so-bad-it's-unmissable hype not seen since Snakes on a Plane.

But unlike Snakes on a Plane, there's some consternation online about whether the plot's... realistic?

The source of the brow-furrowing stems from a showing of the first four-and-a-half minutes of the film last weekend at SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

It's all going fine, with the Americans landing on the moon and cracking a few bad gags, until one of them peeks over the edge of a crater and spies an enormous compound. Shaped like a swastika of course, just so there's no confusion here.

Then he gets shot by a Nazi wearing a gas mask. Then all hell breaks loose - on YouTube.

What's followed in the past few days is a raging debate about whether German war pistols will work on the moon and whether it's a massive oversight on behalf of the makers of Iron Sky.

At last count, there were no less than 30 PAGES of anguished hand-wringing like this: "Guys, you can shoot a gun in space, only if the bullets have air in them."

And this: "Um, don't mean to kill it, but neither a 'panzerfaust' or a pistol would work in space. They need oxygen for the actual mechanism for firing to work."

Bet the producers of Iron Sky didn't see this coming.

Watch the trailer and make up your own mind - is the movie about a secret Nazi base on the moon unrealistic?

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/iron-sky-youtubers-fire-up-over-whether-nazis-could-actually-shoot-guns-on-the-moon/story-e6frfmvr-1226305467242#ixzz1pfQTvDaP



The Iron Sky Team responded on facebook:


Okay guys, let's make this clear:

Guns DO work in space. The gunpowder includes the oxygen it needs to burn, it does not need oxygen from the air. And yes, we actually checked it when we were writing that scene Smile

If you don't believe us, ask Mythbusters: http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/submit-a-myth.html - we'd be happy to loan them a moon nazi trooper for a test.



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Post by FinnFreak Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:31 pm

Mark Walters of http://bigfanboy.com talks to IRON SKY director Timo Vuorensola and producer Tero Kaukomaa (in the first half of the video), and stars Julia Dietze and Stephanie Paul (in the second half). The team talks about putting together the Finnish production, their experience opening at the Berlin Film Festival and coming to the 2012 South by Southwest Film Festival, and their inspirations and experiences making the movie in this candid and informative set of interviews.

IRON SKY interview(s):
Timo Vuorensola, Tero Kaukomaa, Julia Dietze & Stephanie Paul at SXSW 2012

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1eNwGD4N-M


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Post by faithfully Mon Apr 02, 2012 11:03 pm

The trailers look wicked Razz
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Post by FinnFreak Thu Apr 05, 2012 3:42 am

www.helsinginsanomat.fi/english - Wednesday 4.4.2012


Samuli Torssonen, special effects man behind Iron Sky

IRON SKY - a sci-fi comedy from Finland 320px-Samuli_Torssonen_at_Assembly_2008


By Anna-Sofia Berner


The story has many beginnings.

The official story begins in 1992 when 13-year-old Samuli Torssonen ran into his room in the Koivistonkylä district of Tampere, turned on his computer and launched the Deluxe Paint II programme.

The newest Star Trek film had just been shown on television, and Samuli was inspired to produce his own space animation: Star Wreck. It was to be the first of many.

Samuli got his first computer, a Commodore 64, a few years earlier.

But perhaps the story began even earlier than that, with technology Lego bricks that Samuli used to build lorries. He never looked at the instructions because he wanted to figure out himself how to arrange the bricks.

Or perhaps the story began in Pyhäsalmi at his family’s summer cottage, where Samuli built huts and a raft on which he would go onto the lake. Whenever he concentrated on something he would devote his full attention to it. He also did not need a peer group around him, being content to work alone.

A total of 1,500 invited guests emerge from ten cinemas after spending an hour and a half watching Nazis trying to take over the earth. It is Monday and the most expensive film ever produced in Finland, Iron Sky with a price tag of EUR 7.5 million, has had its premiere at the Plevna cinema in Tampere.

Milling among the local residents are the stars of the film itself. Towering over most others is Götz Otto, 199 centimetres tall, who plays the chief villain.

Walking toward the door is 33-year-old Samuli Torssonen who looks more like an engineer than a filmmaker in his red tie.

A white limousine stands on a side road in front of the cinema.

“Who is that for?” Torssonen asks his partner.

They walk around the limousine and stay underneath a canopy because it is raining. A moment later Julia Dietze, who plays the main female lead, appears at the door dressed in an orange evening gown.

“Could you bring it a bit closer?” she asks the man with her umbrella shortly before getting in the car. The stars get a chauffeured limousine, but without Samuli Torssonen there would never have been a premiere.

Samuli Torssonen is the on-set supervisor, pre-visualisation artist, VFX editor, visual effects producer, visual effects supervisor, and producer of Iron Sky.

All of this can be summarised by saying that he is responsible primarily for the special effects of the film. In this movie it means more than just explosions, battles, and gigantic spacecraft.

Most of the scenes were shot in front of a green screen, and Torssonen and his team have added the scenery by computer.

Torssonen’s influence was greater than the funny titles suggest. He and director Timo Vuorensola are a seamless pair who have worked together for the past 15 years.

They were already working together when Vuorensola was a telemarketer who had quit school and Torssonen was unemployed with a Bachelor of Business degree who spent his unemployment money and all of his time to put the final touches on the first full-length Star Wreck film.

Because Star Wreck is where it all began.

The sixth part of the series, which began in 1992, was shot in the early 2000s. The film studio was Torssonen’s one-room flat in the Multisilta district of Tampere. The actors went one by one in front of a blue screen. Because of the limited space, even dialogues involving two actors had to be shot with each of the actors playing separately in turn.

Initially the part six of Star Wreck was supposed to be a 20-minute celebration of special effects. But as often happens when Torssonen concentrates on something, the ambition kept on growing.

It took seven years, but finally the first ever full-length feature film available to be downloaded on the internet came out of Multisilta.

At the beginning of the film, Captain Pirk, the antihero played by Torssonen himself, steps out of the spaceship’s toilet, zips up his fly and moves toward his crew with toilet paper stuck to the sole of his shoe.

Soon the sci-fi parody produced by the two friends had been downloaded more than a million times, and there were viewers all around the world.

This was all happening at a time when YouTube was just being set up.

Taxis and limousines take the guests to the Pakkahuone Hall. It is time for speeches.

“Six years ago I met two guys in Tampere who changed my life”, says producer Tero Kaukomaa.

"Let me introduce: Timo Vuorensola and Samuli Torssonen!"

The two friends step up to the podium. Vuorensola grabs the microphone and takes control of the stage. Torssonen stands to the side, smiling with a slightly loosened tie around his neck.

“This feels surreal. It’s as if I were dreaming”, Torssonen says later with a can of beer in his hand.

Guests are constantly coming up to thank Torssonen and praise the film. “I hope that the world will be queuing at your door”, says editor Suresh Ayyar.

After the success of Star Wreck the world was not yet lurking behind his door, but at least Torssonen was no longer dependent on unemployment benefits.

The production team earned money by selling the DVD versions of the film, as well as t-shirts and other products with the Star Wreck theme. Torssonen set up a company and a Star Wreck store was opened in Tampere, with a back room that became an office. It was a big step.

“It was fantastic to be able to tell people to come to the office at nine and leave at five.”

One person invited to the office was Finlandia Prize winner Johanna Sinisalo whom Torssonen asked for help in writing the script for a new film. The friends had been tossing around an idea dreamed up by Jarmo Puskala in the sauna about Nazis who had fled to the moon, but the idea did not move forward. Sinisalo promised to write a story about lunar Nazis.

Torssonen and Vuorensola started getting invitations from around the world asking them to come and talk about their exceptional first film. When the two travelled to the film festival in the Norwegian city of Tromsø it was the first time that Vuorensola had flown on a plane.

Once Torssonen was invited to Croatia, which he thought was located somewhere in the neighbourhood of Russia. When he got there he realised that sweaters and winter coats were perhaps the wrong attire for the shore of the Adriatic Sea. General knowledge had never been one of his strong points.

On Tuesday, a day after the party with all of the invited guests, it was the turn of the fans to queue up for the biggest screen in Plevna.

Torssonen takes a look at the queue before going to a nearby cafe. He takes off his brown leather jacket, leans back, and starts to tell a story about how Iron Sky came to be – or more precisely, what all the obstacles were before it was really made.

Many people worked on the script, and it kept changing up to the very end. This took years. The budget grew all the time. At times the actors were about to walk out when the shortage of funding forced constant delays in the shooting schedule. In 2009 some of the members of the crew had to be made redundant for months, and in 2011, when the shooting was finally underway, it was not clear if there would be enough money to complete it.

For many of its makers Iron Sky was a more dazzling film school than most. Now Torssonen knows how to attract investors at the Cannes Film Festival, how to fit as many special effects experts as possible into a two-room office, and how to direct one’s own role models – people who have been involved in the production of such classics as Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.

“I also learned that sometimes you have to let go of half-finished images even if it is painful to do so.”

And so the film was finally completed and got its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, and now is waiting to be shown in cinemas around the world.

For the past two months Torssonen has been earning a regular monthly salary of more than EUR 2,000. Until then he spent 15 years on irregular income averaging about EUR 1,000 a month.

One element of tension, though: will the public find Iron Sky?

“After once getting a million viewers, I wouldn’t want to go back.”

After all of this the situation is the same as it was seven years ago. After years of work, the film is complete, and there is no knowledge of another one.

Torssonen makes films for the same reason that he built Lego trucks. A movie is a complicated jigsaw puzzle which he enjoys putting together.

But too much is always too much. Next he would prefer to concentrate on the special effects – or at least he would like to have a script that is ready.

“It would be good therapy.”

Of course it would not hurt if the script came from Hollywood. Director Vuorensola has already taken some calls from there. As a true resident of Tampere, Torssonen downplays the significance of the contacts. “They’re just calling me to make sure that nobody else gets me first.”

The story has many beginnings, but the end remains open.



John - Wink




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Post by FinnFreak Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:28 am

Variety.com - Mon., Apr. 9, 2012


Germans love Nazi spoof

'Iron Sky' lands more than $3 mil in bow



By Nick Holdsworth


MOSCOW -- "Iron Sky," the $10 million Nazis-on-the-moon spoof partly financed by global sci-fi fans, clocked in more than a quarter of a million admissions, and box office north of $3 million, in its initial release over the Easter holiday weekend.

No. 1 in its home territory of Finland with 75,000 admissions, the film -- a co-production with Germany and Australia, pulled in 250,000 admissions from 340 screens across Norway and Germany.

Released by Polyband in Germany, the movie -- a dark comedy of mad Third Reich escapees to the moon planning to return to Earth for a 21st century takeover -- "Iron Sky" rolls out next across other European and international territories, including the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Australia, Israel and Japan.

Helsinki-based producer Blind Spot Pictures worked a worldwide community of sci-fi fans and online gamers to help pull in close to 10% of the movie's budget through crowd-financing.

Polyband CEO Swetlana Winkel said the 164-screen release in Germany did gangbusters biz. "We are very glad that so many fans of 'Iron Sky' went to see the film although it was Easter holidays and very cold," she said. "We will increase the screens to follow the huge demand."

Producer Tero Kaukomaa said the opening suggested there was a potential audience of "millions around the world."

Stealth Media Group has sold the film worldwide except for Portugal, Italy, Spain, Latin America and South Africa, he added.



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Post by faithfully Thu Feb 21, 2013 9:18 pm

Got my hands on the blu-ray bounce
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Post by ravshania Thu Jun 12, 2014 5:29 pm

howz the movies by the way...? Shocked 
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Post by faithfully Thu Jun 12, 2014 10:41 pm

cyclops not bad haha
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Post by ravshania Fri Jun 13, 2014 2:16 pm

i have downloaded but not yet seen...Razz
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Post by faithfully Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:33 pm

I have the movie on bluray, its alright  Very Happy 
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Post by ravshania Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:39 pm

okhaye...soon will watch it... Cool 
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Post by faithfully Mon Dec 26, 2016 10:55 am

Well a few years later have you watched it yet Ravies? Razz
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