Film politics and censorship

This chapter discusses the relations of the state authorities and cinema from four perspectives: film as the object of taxation, film as an object of censorship, film as propaganda, and film as a means of doing national and international politics. Some of these perspectives concern film studios directly and some indirectly, either as active agents or as objects of the state’s politics, or both. Yet, each of these factors affected crucially to the preconditions and circumstances the studios operated in. Special attention is payed to the WWII years, when Finnish film industry was divided into two quarrelsome organisations: operating under the guidance of the German-led International Film Chamber, some of the distributors, cinema owners and production companies – including Suomi-Filmi and Suomen Filmiteollisuus – aimed at a total ban of Anglo-American films, while others wanted to keep on importing and screening American films. This chapter examines the various effects this dispute had on Finnish film industry and culture.