They came with their visions for the offbeat and the absurd, with the genre-bending and narrative-defying, some bearing props as they pitched their projects under trippy psychedelic lighting in Helsinki’s historic Bio Rex theater. If you wanted to gauge the mood at the first edition of the Finnish Film Affair’s Finnish Weird pitching session, it was summed up by the creator who greeted the audience at the start of his two-minute pitch with a rousing, “Hello to all the weirdos in the room!”

A new addition to the annual industry event, which runs parallel to the Helsinki Intl. Film Festival, Finnish Weird — or F-Weird, as it’s already affectionately known — was unveiled this year to showcase unusual, daring and unexplored ideas across a range of formats while defying traditional standards and embracing uniqueness.

According to Finnish Film Affair head Alisha Hasan, the event was launched in an effort...