{"id":258815,"date":"2025-09-27T13:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T13:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/258815\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T13:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T13:22:10","slug":"pigtown-director-on-finnish-rural-romantic-zombie-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/258815\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Pigtown’ Director on Finnish ‘Rural Romantic Zombie Comedy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen a zombie plague is unwittingly unleashed on a small farming town, murder and mayhem ensue in\u00a0Finnish filmmaker\u00a0Pekka Ollula<\/a>\u2019s directorial debut \u201cPigtown,\u201d which won the top prize among Nordic projects this week at Finnish Film Affair<\/a>, the industry event running parallel to the Helsinki Intl. Film Festival \u2013 Love & Anarchy.<\/p>\n

\n\tBilled by the director as a \u201crural romantic zombie comedy,\u201d \u201cPigtown\u201d follows Iida, a long-time animal rights activist, who wants to turn over a new leaf and stop breaking into farms. Her radical friend Anja, however, goes too far, poisoning pig feed with a strange black liquid that gradually turns the pigs into bloodthirsty zombies. When an unlucky farmhand gets bitten, the disease spreads to humans.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Sami, a city boy ashamed of his roots, arrives for a relaxing weekend on his family farm. When he meets Iida at the village festival, sparks fly \u2014 until the villagers start turning into zombies one by one and the village bingo game erupts into a bloodbath. What follows is a \u201crural genre mash up like no other,\u201d according to Ollula, and \u201can unforgettable cult experience about farming, food and survival.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking to\u00a0Variety\u00a0in Helsinki, where\u00a0he heralded his Finnish Film Affair triumph as \u201ca win for all genre filmmakers,\u201d\u00a0the director described the \u201crecipe\u201d for \u201cPigtown\u201d as \u201cextremely simple.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou take one part of \u2018Shaun of the Dead\u2019 for the humor; you take one part of \u2018Aliens\u2019 for the action; you take one part of George Miller\u2019s \u2018Babe\u2019 for the heart; and then you add a generous dose of Peter Jackson\u2019s\u00a0\u2018Bad Taste\u2019 and \u2018Braindead\u2019 for the extra kick,\u201d he said. \u201cMix it together with the Finnish countryside and serve it in cinemas worldwide with a good wine. That\u2019s the recipe for mayhem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWritten and directed by\u00a0Ollula and produced by his production shingle\u00a0Oohlala Pictures and\u00a0Sweden\u2019s\u00a0G\u00f6taFilm, \u201cPigtown\u201d won raves from the Nordic Selection jury in Helsinki, which celebrated the \u201csheer fun, passion and energy\u201d the filmmaking team brought to their pitch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe global potential for this European co-production is obvious, and they even managed to make it personal and authentic by touching on the importance of community and family, which isn\u2019t easy when your story happens to be a horror zombie comedy,\u201d the jury said.<\/p>\n

\n\tFinding himself behind the camera for the first time, \u201cPigtown\u201d marks a new direction for industry veteran Ollula, who cut his teeth as part of the marketing team of 2012\u2019s \u201cIron Sky\u201d \u2014 Timo Vuorensola\u2019s\u00a0Finnish-German-Australian sci-fi spoof about Nazis on the moon\u00a0\u2014 as well as its 2019 sequel \u201cIron Sky: The Coming Race.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHis producing credits include the comedy-horror \u201cThe Redeemers,\u201d which racked up a string of international sales for Reel Suspects following its 2022 premiere, and the action-horror film \u201cDelivery Run,\u201d which was featured at the Cannes Market\u2019s Fronti\u00e8res Platform for genre films last year. Pic premieres next month at the Sitges Film Festival ahead of a Nov. 5 theatrical release in Finland.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso on the slate at Oohlala is\u00a0\u201cCrime and Punishment of\u00a0Toivo Harald Koljonen,\u201d a true crime horror film currently in development about a notorious axe murderer who was the last person to be executed in Finland.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPigtown\u201d marks the latest step on an unlikely filmmaking journey for Ollula that began in the Finnish farm town of Huhtamo, where his passion for cinema was sparked at an early age. Speaking in Helsinki, the director recalled how he and his friends would pop cassettes into the family\u2019s VHS player and watch their favorite movies on an endless loop: Peter Jackson\u2019s \u201cBad Taste\u201d and \u201cBraindead,\u201d \u201cRoboCop,\u201d each entry in the \u201cEvil Dead\u201d and \u201cFriday the 13th\u201d franchises.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWith his father\u2019s camcorder, they would then make their own schlocky slasher flicks and splatter pics, with Ollula\u2019s younger brother often serving as their go-to victim.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough Ollula left Huhtamo at the age of 16 to pursue his higher education in Helsinki, the town remains the director\u2019s \u201csource of creativity,\u201d he said. To that end, he launched the biannual Huhtamo Intl. Film Festival in 2017 in an effort to breathe new life into his struggling hometown.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a pig farmer\u2019s son, I\u2019ve been watching the decline of the countryside from very close by. Businesses going away, people dying and moving away,\u201d he said. \u201cI started thinking, \u2018What can I do to help the situation? I need to do my part.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCelebrating its fifth edition this year, the festival features folksy innovations such as converting a working barn into a cinema, while recent editions have seen \u201cThe Big Lebowski\u201d playing in the town bowling alley and \u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d screening on a local airstrip \u2014 what Ollula described as \u201cthe first and only \u2018fly-in\u2019 cinema that I\u2019m aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPigtown,\u201d he hopes, will further his mission to use his filmmaking and the festival to give a boost to the local community, both by collaborating with the townspeople during production and by showcasing Huhtamo on the big screen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy shooting locations are the same locations where my festival happens,\u201d he said. \u201cSo at one point, you can be at my festival, watching my film and realizing, \u2018Wait a minute \u2014 I\u2019m here and there!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFinnish Film Affair takes place Sept. 24 \u2013 26 in Helsinki.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a zombie plague is unwittingly unleashed on a small farming town, murder and mayhem ensue in\u00a0Finnish filmmaker\u00a0Pekka…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":258816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,135878,53,135929,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-258815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-finnish-film-affair","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-pekka-ollula","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115276476990375637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}