Finland's and the Baltics' leading exhibitor Finnkino has entered the digital era with Finnish director Raimo O Niemi's family feature Mystery Of The Wolf.

The film was shown on a Barco 2K projector at Helsinki's Tennispalatsi, the company's 14-screener in the capital centre.

The theatre's second-largest auditorium, with 360 seats, has been equipped for digital screenings, which will shortly include another two local films, Aleksi Makela's V2 Dead Angel and Olli Saarela's Year Of The Wolf.

'We want to be in front when digitalisation takes off in Europe,' said Finnkino president Timo Manty.

'We have now made our preparations, and will follow the development closely, before we invest further, to make sure that our theatres will meet international standards.'

In Finland, Finnkino programmes 92 screens in nine cities, including 31 in the Helsinki area, dominated by the Tennispalatsi and the Kinopalatsi (10 screens).

Most recently the company bought three cinemas from Norway's Sandrew Metronome, which has now totally pulled out of Scandinavian exhibition, and on November 24 it added the Finnkino Plaza in Oulu to its circuit.

Last year Finnkino controlled more than 60% of the Finnish market.

At the same time the former production and distribution house which now concentrates 100% on exhibition has moved into the Baltic Republics, represented at three venues in Estonia, two in Latvia and one in Lithuania, taking a 50% market share.

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