CPH:DOX-Bound Anti-Deforestation Doc ‘Once Upon a Time in a Forest’ Lands at Autlook Film Sales (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Annika Pham Doc specialist house Autlook Film Sales has picked up world sales on the Finnish film “Once Upon a Time in a Forest,” ahead of its world premiere in the main competition of Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX festival.

Variety is premiering its trailer (below). The film, directed and produced by Virpi Suutari, scooped the $15,000 Al Jazeera Documentary Pitch Award at the last Cannes Marché du Film. “We are proud to follow Virpi Suutari’s body of work,” says Salma Abdalla, CEO of Vienna-based Autlook Film Sales, attached to the director’s previous films “Aalto” and “Garden Lovers.” “With her distinctive cinematic language, Virpi creates a timely portrait of a generation that builds the most beautiful and responsible relationship to our economy, nature and other human beings.” The film is indeed both an ode to nature, the wonders of Finnish old-growth coniferous forests and woodland animals, and to the passionate youths fighting to protect them.

Suutari’s interest in bringing the burning environmental issue of forest preservation to the screens was triggered by a very personal and practical issue. “Two years ago, when my mother died, I inherited a small forest.

This is very common in Finland where you have around 600,000 private forest owners,” she tells Variety. “Together with my sister, we started to discuss what we should do — log it, sell it or preserve it?