Press Release 31st January 2008

DOCPOINT 2008 GATHERED 22 000 VISITORS

DocPoint - Helsinki Documentary Film Festival continued to grow in 2008. The 7th edition of DocPoint festival, held in Helsinki 23rd – 27th January 2008, gathered approximately 17 500 spectators. All the DocPoint events summed up 22 000 visits, which exceeded last year's number by a thousand visits.

DOKKINO – Documentary Film Event fof Children and Youth rose also to a new record with more than 2 100 spectators at the pupil screenings. More than 40 schools from the Helsinki Metropolitan area participated in the DOKKINO event.

Among the Finnish Selection in DocPoint the most interest gathered especially the Apollo award receiver Jörn Donner's retrospective, Markku Lehmuskallio and Natastasia Lapsui's Travelling and the opening film of the festival, Arto Halonen's  Shadow of the Holy Book.

In the international programme the most sought after screenings were the Iranian classics from the Iran Iran! programme and Models, Dog Days and Import/Export from the Ulrich Seidl retrospective. Other favourites were among others The Maysles Brothers special screening The American Night, the previewed privatization film The Big Sellout, the Austrian film It Happened Just Before and a twin screening hosted by the directors of The Alpha Diaries and My Palestine depicting the Israeli – Palestine conflict from the both sides of the border.

The DocPoint public panel discussions and seminars were partically popular. From the seminars the most popular was Images of the Civil War where experts from various fields and the director of the brand new film The Victims discussed on the Finnish Civil War in 1918.

More than 70 filmmakers and film professionals from more than 18 countries visited the DocPoint festival this year. The renewed DocPoint Videotheque at the President Hotel was in heavy use by the professionals. Especially Finnish films were viewed at the Videotheque.