Italian Paolo Bertolin, festival programmer at the Venice Film Festival, will select the winner of the AVEK Award 2021 from shortlisted entries. Finland’s most significant media art award will be presented on September 30th.

Director of AVEK Ulla Simonen highlights in her blog the importance and role of AVEK in a time when the organisation’s groundwork is being shaken. “The AVEK of the future is being built, but our foundation is now crumbling. There is no certainty about the future of the compensation for private copying.”

Tomi Pohto, who began working for Kopiosto towards the end of 2020, talks about what it is like to join our work community during a crisis.

Today, the Suomi elää luovuudesta (In Finland, creativity is life) campaign handed in its petition to Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä (Centre Party). In the petition, more than 4,700 well-known creative professionals and citizens appeal for increasing the appreciation and acknowledgement of the sector: for Finland, creative industries provide opportunities for sustainable growth and internationally significant commercial activities. The signees appealed to the Minister to convert cutbacks into investments and, in the future, place creative professions on an equal footing with other forms of livelihood.

We recently paid EUR 3.5 million in copying remunerations to 26 member organisations representing various fields of culture and communications. This batch involved compensations collected with regard to copying and scanning online materials for 2020.

How can creative professionals earn a living through digital platforms? How can legislation enable cultural vitality and continuity? These questions will be discussed in the SuomiAreena event of 13 July, where the creative industry will look into the future.

“A literary translator follows the thoughts, not the words,” says translator Arja Pikkupeura. She is known best for her Finnish translations of the works of Lyudmila Ulitskaya, one of the major writers in modern Russian literature.

The campaign ‘Suomi elää luovuudesta’ (In Finland, creativity is life) already includes 4,496 widely known creative workers and citizens. Until the second week of June, the campaign challenges you to join in an appeal for the appreciation of creative work: creative industries are a sustainable growth opportunity for Finland and an internationally significant industry. The signatories demand that the cuts made in the field be turned into investments.

Inspector Juha Kallanranta from Kopiosto is retiring in the time of the coronavirus, an exceptional situation that he could not ever have imagined in advance.

Organisations and workers in the creative industries are appealing for the appreciation of the cultural field with their campaign ‘Suomi elää luovuudesta’ (In Finland, creativity is life) that starts today. The campaign brings Finns face to face with these facts that make you think: the creative industries are clearly more significant for both employment and GDP than many of the traditional ones. In addition to restoring the appreciation, the campaign demands that the cuts in the industry should be turned into investments.