History of Tampere Film Festival

Tampere Film Festival evolved from Tampere Short Film Days, a cinema event held in Tampere around the end of February 1969. The man behind the idea for the event was local film aficionado Ilkka Kalliomäki.

The Short Film Days turned out a success and encouraged the organisers to carry on. No time was wasted: the first Tampere International Short Film Festival was held the following year, 1970, with the kind support of the Ministry of Education, the Finnish Film Foundation and the City of Tampere.

The festival is the oldest of its kind in the Nordic countries; the second-longest-running film festival in the area, Göteborg Film Festival, started only in 1979.

The central mission of Tampere Film Festival has remained unchanged since the 1970s: to hold an international and a Finnish short film competition, and to organise various seminars for film professionals and enthusiasts. The festival also aims to promote short films sales and international co-operation in the field of culture, as well as to cherish the tradition of a significant local cultural event.

Internationally, Tampere Film Festival has been held in esteem since the very beginning. Later, appreciation for the festival grew in Finland as well. Tampere Film Festival promotes young, up-and-coming filmmakers and also attracts largely young audiences. The festival has always striven to remain ideologically neutral and open, and its sole commitment is to showcase high standard cinema, regardless of the social system it represents.

In the early years, the number of films screened at Tampere Film Festival exceeded a hundred. By the mid-1990s, the number of screenings had reached and surpassed the hundred mark, while the number of films hovered around 500. Almost 9,500 films, commercials, trailers and video clips were screened at Tampere Film Festival during the years 1970-2002 – more than 6,200 of these as part of the special programmes, more than 2,300 in the international competition and about 1,000 in the Finnish competition. Between 1970 and 2002, the festival was visited by approximately 550,000 people, including free screenings and related events of various kinds.

Over the course of three decades, Tampere Film Festival has been able to re-invent itself and remain relevant and interesting, regardless of the fact that the organisation of the festival has always been characterised by a scarcity of financial means. Tampere Film Festival is an event with international, national and local aspects. Our aim is to maintain these strengths as we continue to develop the festival in the future.