BASAARI IN A NUTCASE

THE BASAARI TELEVISION PROGRAMME SERIES

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Basaari is the oldest Finnish programme series sent regularly on a weekly basis, which enlightens the life situations of immigrants and our own minorities in modern day Finland. The Basaari story began in 1996 with short theme reports. During the years, both the series and its editorial staff have seen some changes and development – the Basaari program has told life stories of thousands of people and the editorial department has grown together to form a Basaari community, which has educated many immigrant professionals into the industry and offered many talents a chance.

The Basaari programme attempts to tell human true stories from the main character´s own point of view. Among others, a single Somali parent living in the Vuosaari district in Helsinki, a Mongolian butcher from Joensuu and a single Laplander from Inari in the Finnish Lapland shed light on a reality which might be hidden from many Finns, as well as foreigners resident in Finland, due to differences in language, culture or even due to some prejudice. The series focuses on making journalism on the grass root level and is committed to social and human basic values such as freedom of speech, ethicity, humanism, democracy and defending the human rights.

Starting from beginning of 2008, in the new Basaari programmes, separate themes will be analyzed through a fifteen-minute documentary and short, striking point-of-view documentaries as well as by the reporters themselves. The documentaries will be made on the main character´s own native language. The program will be presented by speakers Maria Friman, a young Romany reporter, and Ghadi Boustani, a Lebanese-born cameraman-director.

BASAARI EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT

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All directors work on a freelance basis in our edition, so the style and perspective of the documentaries vary. Already since 2001 our crew of directors has mainly constituted of immigrants and we intend to follow the same policy even in the future. We want the programs to be made by people who live the everyday immigrant life in Finland themselves. Those familiar to its joys and sorrows are the right people for making this series.

We have organized three extended courses on media work to educate immigrant talents to enrich the Finnish television program production. So far, the three-year Mundo-project (2004-2007) has been the most extensive educational project we have organized for immigrants and ethnical minorities resident in Finland. All in all, 24 media industry professionals from 18 different countries studied in the Mundo-project. The project was sponsored by the national broadcasting company Yleisradio, the Helsinki polytechnic Stadia and Dream Catcher Oy as well as five international partners.

During its over ten-year history the television series and its editorial staff have received many awards, such as the CIVIS ARD jury special award (2006), the Yleisradio Hella-award for programs promoting equality (2005, 2004, 2001), main award of the educational fund Koura (2003) and Bonnier Great journalist award (2002).

We hope you´ll enjoy watching the series!
Basaari editorial staff

P.S. If you have any suggestions for main characters or themes for the show or you wish to send feed-back on the programs, please visit the website´s feed-back section.