A High Court in Helsinki has ordered Finnish production house Lasihelmi Filmi to withdraw Finnish director Aku Louhimies' feature, Man Exposed, from public distribution, supporting scriptwriter Veli-Pekka Hanninen's claim that producer Harri Rati violated his rights.

Cinemas or others infringing the verdict will be subject to a $129,000 (Euros 100,000) fine. Man Exposed was last week withdrawn from the Nordic Film Market at the Goteborg International Film Festival, and 10,000 DVDs have been recalled from local retailers.

According to Hanninen, his company cancelled the contract with Lasihelmi in August 2005, following disagreements about the final draft of the screenplay, as Hanninen would not accept the changes made by Louhimies and colleagues. The writer said he had now sold the rights to a UK producer who will try to stage an English-language feature from the script.

Released domestically on Sept 15, 2006, by FS Film, Man Exposed has taken in excess of 79,000 admissions in Finland. It won for Best Actor (Samueli Edelmann) at the Black Nights International Film Festival in Tallinn, and was just awarded a Jussi - Finland 's national film prize - for Best Supporting Actor (Mikko Kouki).

Louhimies would not comment on the sentence which he considered a matter between two companies. In 2005 his Frozen Land became local top-grosser, with 172,000 admissions; his latest, Frozen City , fetched five Jussis.

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