The factories stand empty in a town in decline – and then someone shows up talking about making not just one, but several motion pictures there. The enthusiasts behind the film idea initially encountered quite a bit of scepticism, claim Dahlström and Wengström, two of the authors of the report. Luckily however belief in the project went beyond its original enthusiasts to include civil servants and politicians, while also gaining the support of the local people.
Looking back, a clear line of development can be discerned, but initially it was a risky project for the regions to involve themselves with filmmaking, notes Wengström, who is coordinator of regional film issues at The Swedish Film Institute, SFI. Together with six other Nordic researchers, Wengström and Dahlström, senior researcher at Nordregio, wrote the report Film and regional development – Policy and Practice in the Nordic Countries ('Film och regional utveckling I Norden'), published by The Swedish Film Institute and Nordregio.
The report describes film policies and regional projects involving film in the Nordic countries. It includes a number of useful indications in terms of the positive effects on employment, education and training, regional identity, and place marketing.
Film is both a cultural and an industrial activity and plays an increasingly important role in regional development. One effect of this is that the regions in Sweden have more than doubled their film-related efforts since 2000, notes Wengström.
How then is regional interest in film cultivated? Usually, it begins with the decline of an important local industry. Normally, there is a wish to diversify where there has previously been a focus on one particular trade in order to make the region less vulnerable, Dahlström suggests.
Useful competence essential
Both filming and post-production tasks create new employment opportunities. Moreover, such opportuni-ties are to be found well beyond the film sector itself. Film crews need somewhere to stay, they need to eat, they need transport, and there is always a need for various kinds of craftsmen to be on hand.
It is however a highly 'seasonal' trade, where most of the turnover is generated during the six to twelve weeks of actual shooting. In order to increase employment opportunities over time, it is wise then to have a wider audio-visual sector in addition to the filming, something that has been stressed by Danish planners in particular.
People may spend some of their time working on a feature film and some on a music project or a commercial, for example. Pretty much the same technology is used in either case, Dahlström argues.
In order for the efforts of those involved to have an impact, the region needs to generate useful competence resources. Money for regional development may be spent on education and training that may benefit the entire region. The level of competence is raised, both through the creation of new educational
opportunities and through the work with the film itself.
Boosting self-esteem
A further argument in favour of film, from an industrial policy viewpoint, is that it makes the region more attractive. This is the kind of 'attrac-tion' that brings in tourists, while it is also possible that a more attractive regional image encourages people to remain in the region, or perhaps even to relocate there.
Local people may act in the films as extras, the first showing of a film may take place in the region, and movie stars occasionally walk down the street. Moreover, notes Dahlström, these things encourage the 'feel good factor' and boost self-esteem.
The wider effect that developments in the film sector have on regional and local identity and self-esteem are difficult to estimate, as are the effects on employment and turnover. Few analytical reviews have been undertaken in this field in relation to start-up companies, new possibilities for employment and cash flow. However, one Swedish researcher at Luleå Tekniska Universitet (The Luleå University of Technology) has looked at the activities of Filmpool Nord in Sweden, where it was discovered that few companies are wholly dependent on film related business. In this context, One must keep in mind that it takes time for the results to show and that many companies may benefit indirectly from the film making, Dahlström claims.
Just like "Trollywood"
While the report deals with local projects, it was only natural to make a comparison between the Nordic countries, notes Wengström. There are a number of actual collaborations between companies and film funds. These collaborations create a growing market. During film festivals, the countries usually make collaborative efforts labelled, 'Scandinavian' Films.
The Nordic countries also have a similar structure, in the sense that there is a tradition of film production and subsidies being focused on the capital cities, where the educational centres are located. In Denmark, for example, there is talk of a "Copenhagenism" affecting film subsidies.
Sweden is ahead of the other countries in its focus on regional development, partly due to Film I Väst, the Western region production centre for film, in Trollhättan, aka "Trollywood". The Danish FilmFyn and Filmby Århus (Film City Arhus) are also clearly inspired by Film I Väst.
Norway has closely studied Sweden, while also developing its own models. More private capital is however being attracted here thanks to the desire of companies to gain a positive image. Currently, the regions are mainly concerned with the production of short films and documentaries, but increasingly, they want to make feature films as well, though, as Dahlström notes, there is some fear that the regions may compete too fiercely with each other.
In many ways, the development of Film I Väst is typical of the development of regional film efforts. It started in Alingsås as an opportunity for amateurs, mostly young adults, to try working with film. The next step was to set up a film fund in order to start filming professionally. Funding was provided in part by the Gothenburg office of Swedish Television, SVT, and by the public sector, both on the local and the regional level. When the support diminished, the fund was dissolved.
That was the real turning point. Film I Väst moved to Trollhättan, which was located within the "Objective 2 area"; they applied for, and received, money from the European Union's Structural Fund. This was at the end of the 1990s, while unemployment had been a problem in Trollhättan for several years, due to major cutbacks in the traditional manufacturing industry of the area. The municipal government was looking for different ways to create employment opportunities while the empty factory premises were ideally suited for film shoots. A recurring element in these regions has been the presence of politicians and civil servants who have understood the possibilities inherent in film production, while at the same time having the courage to make an attempt to do something without any guarantees as to the eventual outcome. There has been a willingness to proceed in new ways and to think new thoughts, notes Wengström.
Film changing image
A few years later, Lukas Moodyson's Fucking Åmål, aka Show Me Love and Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark became major hits. Both were shot in Trollhättan – neither tried to popularize the western region of Sweden. Moodyson's film deals with the longing for escape while the von Trier film is set in the USA.
As such, for Dahlström, the regional benefits accruing to Trollhättan are to be found elsewhere. It's not just a matter of seeing a lovely land-scape captured on film, but of changing people's ideas about an area through the production of film. Film I Väst provided Trollhättan with a new image significantly different from that of an industrial town on its way downhill. You got the impres-sion that 'something was happening here!'
The medium of film can also of course be used to promote an area to tourists. This is something that Iceland has been engaged in for a number of years. Iceland markets a number of locations worldwide as 'shooting sites' and offers foreign and domestic filmmakers a 12 per cent refund on production costs. These are not regional productions, rather it is a matter of providing the environment as such, but this pays off well. Estimates show that during the shooting of the James Bond-movie Die Another Day some 500 million Icelandic Crowns were spent in South-eastern Iceland.
Similarly, in Finland the Sodankylä film festival, with the Kaurismäki brothers among its founders, attracts numerous visitors to a small town in Lapland, while in Sweden, Film I Skåne, received a major boost by hosting the filming of the Inspector Wallander crime movies. The films are set in the Ystad area and they have attracted so many German tourists that there is now talk of a
special kind of 'Wallander tourism'.
What Next?
Trollhättan is not alone in gaining from EU funds. Thus the question arises, would it have been possible to achieve the same kind of progress without access to these development funds? Possible yes, but the process would have been slower. The money from the funds gave people who were already working with film the opportunity to do more, Wengström argues.
It remains to be seen how Nordic film production will manage without support from the EU in future, with Structural Fund support now likely to be given to the new EU countries instead. Moreover, there has also been some discussion about whether these means should ever have been used for film production at all. Currently Sweden is seeing an increase in the level of support from regional and municipal authorities. This remains however something of a 'hot potato' politically as some Swedish politicians are of the opinion that it is wrong for the regional governments to use their funds to support the film centres, and they have gone to the courts to make their case.
Sweden has made more of an effort to support the regional development of film, though Finland has a more firmly established tradition of developing the strengths inherent in their regions, according to Dahlström. They work with the competence that is already there, regardless of whether the knowledge concerns chamber music or cell phones. And these efforts receive national support.
On the national level, film is still generally regarded as being in the main a concern for cultural policy. Thus far, the report produced by Dahlström, Wengström and colleagues has generally been ordered by people with a special interest in the cultural sector, in the municipalities and regions. To coincide with the report's publication, a conference was held where practitioners, policy makers and leading representatives from the Nordic film institutes were brought together to discuss the issues raised in the book. There is already an ongoing exchange between regions. What I would like to see now is further discussion and an exchange of experiences on the national level, between the countries, Wengström concludes.
By Ann Patmalnieks