The Oscar Watch: Guns of ‘Talvisota’

So what’s the deal behind that bushel of trade ads--a staggering 90 full pages, by our count, to lead all films--touting “Talvisota” as a possible Oscar contender?

Talvi- what?

“That’s one of the reasons we’re running so many ads,” said David Yewdall, the film’s co-supervising sound editor, who’s supervising the pic’s Oscar push with wife Lisa. “We’ve got to overcome the fact that people don’t know our title--which means ‘The Winter War.’ A lot of people don’t even know they make films in Finland.”

National-Filmi Oy is putting up an estimated $500,000 for Oscar hype, as well as re-editing the film down to two hours for eventual American distribution (it screened here for a week in December for Oscar qualification). The epic war pic, which employed 26,000 extras, portrays Finland’s finest hour, when the outnumbered Finnish army triumphantly defended its border against Stalin’s massive forces in 1939.

Subtitled, it’s being screened for academy members at its full three hours and 15 minutes, per academy regulations. The trade ads suggest it as a best-picture contender, rather than for the foreign-language-film category, for which it could qualify next year.

Meanwhile, Yewdall said, the $4-million “Talvisota” is breaking records in Finland and Scandinavia. It premiered in Helsinki on Nov. 30.

But does he really expect all those ads to produce an Oscar windfall?

“Obviously, we would be thrilled with an award. But in the meantime, our main focus is awareness. We’ll win if members of the Hollywood community learn what we are.”