The Finnish Film Foundation has backed the first local feature film project after the producers' strike, chipping in $739,000 (Euros 500,000) production funding for Finnish director Lenka Hellstedt's Land Under Water (Maata meren alla).

Current box-office figures suggest the importance of domestic product in the cinemas: last weekend, three Finnish films on the Top Ten - Juha Wuolijoki's Christmas Story, Petri Kotwica's Black Ice and JP Siili's Ganes - accounted for more than 51% of all admissions.

Scripted by Hellstedt, who directed local 2002 hit Me and Morrison, Land Under Water is the story of Ida, a young African woman living with her Finnish adoptive mother, Kati. An unemployed seamstress, she is recovering from a depression.

Against Kati's wishes she decides to go to Berlin to prove that she can manage on her own. Starring Amira Khalifa, the film will be produced by Mika Ritalahti and Niko Ritalahti, for Silva Mysterium; Sandrew Metronome Finland will release it in the spring.

Meanwhile the Norwegian Film Fund has set Arild Frohlich's Fatso (Knullegutt) rolling, by a $1.6m (Euros 1.1m) production grant for the $3.7m (Euros 2.5m) feature, which Finn Gjerdrum and Stein B Kvae will realise for Paradox Productions.

Based on Lars Ramslie's novel, and scripted by Frohlich and Lars Gudmestad, Fatso portrays a 30-year-old sexually inexperienced man, full of self-disdain and obsessed with porn, whose home invaded by an 20-year-old uninhibited woman.

Described as 'a play with taboos and destinies', the second film in Frohlich's series of Lovable Loosers, which he started with Pitbullterje (2005), Fatso will shoot from February. Scanbox Entertainment Norway will handle domestic distribution.

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