The Hunting Ground Festival news


Actor Tommi Raitolehto plays
one of the main characters in "The Hunting Ground"

Story by Nalle Mielonen
The Hunting Ground (directed by Nalle Mielonen) was finally finished in February 2011 and had it first public screening at Tampere Film Festival a month later. Since then the film has crept in to the consciousness of the rest of the world in various film festivals. The film has screened around Europe, for example in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Spain. The US premiere was last summer at Dallas, Texas at the Fears for Queers Horror Film Festival.
Among the festivals there have been couple big ones as well: The Hunting Ground screened at the South Korean Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival, a festival designed especially for horror, fantasy and thriller films. This past September the film took part of the New Nordic Voices competition at Nordisk Panorama festival at Århus, Denmark. Nordisk Panorama is one of the biggest short and documentary film festivals in Nordic countries. All in all 12 Finnish films were selected to the festival, to compete in different sections. The New Nordic Voices competition was for new promising nordic filmmakers. Director Nalle Mielonen, editor Anssi Rautio and sound designer Ilmari Jyskä were present at the festival. The quality of the films selected to the festival was high, so even though The Hunting Ground did not win anything, it was wonderful to see it screen among such good films.

The Autumn will bring more festivals. The next places to see The Hunting Ground are, for example, South African Horrorfest (new continent for the film!) and Iik! horrofilmfestival at the town of Ii, Finland. In Halloween the film will screen at the US again, this time at Fear Fête Horror Film Festival at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where it will hold the place of “best fantasy-horror short”.