Tero Kaukomaa of 'Iron Sky' Wins Finland's Producer of the Year Honor

Tero Kaukomaa has won Finland's Producer of the Year award for the Nazis-on-the-moon sci-fi comedy Iron Sky.

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The central organization of Finnish film producers presented Kaukomaa with its highest honor, praising the veteran producers' "extremely bold and innovative approach" to financing and producing Iron Sky. Around $1 million of the film's $10 million budget was raised via online crowd funding and Kaukomaa and the Iron Sky team used social media extensively at all stages of the produced to develop and promote the film. The film's crowd financing was used as a guarantee to help secure a Finnish bank loan for the production, the first time a Finnish bank has ever back a local production.

Directed by Timo Vuorensola and starring Julia Dietze, Christopher Kirby, Gotz Otto and Udo Kier, Iron Sky proposes that, in 1945, the Nazis set up a secret base on the dark side of the moon. In 2012, they set to reinvade the earth. The sci-fi spoof has sold worldwide and so far has grossed some $8 million theatrically. Entertainment One bowed Iron Sky in North America, grossing just over $108,000.

Silence, a World War II drama, took two top Finnish film honors: the Director of the Year prize went to Sakari Kirjavainen while star Joonas Saartamo won Actor of the Year.

The Finnish Screenwriters´ Guild picked Veli-Pekka Hanninen as Screenwriter of the Year for his script to the comedy The Storage while Sari Volanen, a producer at Finnish public broadcaster YLE won the Documentary of the Year honor not for an individual work but for "(defending) her stronghold for alternative documentary film with guts and perseverance... (supporting) the young and upcoming filmmakers who have approached her (and defending) the idea that the documentary film does not have to be tied to a specific form or be restricted as a playground for the chosen few filmmakers.”

Finland's industry awards were handed out at the close of the Finnish Film Week, held during the Helsinki International Film Festival.