Timo Vuorensola, a 26-year-old Finnish film director, is facing a familiar industry pressure: how to top his successful debut film, a feature-length thriller made on a shoestring budget that was seen by more than ten million people across the globe.

In the past few days the young director has been doing interviews with local and international press in Helsinki. The expectation is high. The press want the dirt on his next cinematic venture. He is saying very little.

Who is this upstart director, you are no doubt wondering, and when did the Finns start making movies of interest to anybody outside Helsinki?

Vuorensola emerged on the film scene last summer, when he released a Star Trek parody called Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, free of charge to people who visited his website. In the first six months, a file-sharing free-for-all ensued and the film was downloaded ten million times, making it, by some estimates, Finland's most popular film.

Within weeks, he was receiving reports of the film being sold on the streets of cities in Russia and China, hawked by enterprising vendors who added a little marketing embellishment: it was a Twentieth Century Fox production starring Russell Crowe, they claimed. In January, Finnish TV station, Yle TV2, aired it on a Saturday night, and the film had two sold-out screenings at a Norwegian film festival. The film even had some commercial success, selling enough DVDs, T-shirts and paraphernalia to fund an office (that doubles as a Star Wreck shop), incorporate the production company, and hire six staffers.

"We’re not driving Jaguars," says Vuorensola, a line that sounds well-rehearsed.

I reach him on his mobile phone at a park in his hometown of Tampere, Finland. He won’t tell me much about his follow-up film, other than, "I can’t say when for sure we will release it, but it will be hilarious."

Star Wreck featured the galactic adventures of Captain James B. Pirk and his brainiac sidekick Mr Spook. This is not Citizen Kane – nor even Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in other words.

Regardless of your tastes for Star Trek parodies, Star Wreck was a landmark film by almost any commercial measure. It took seven years and €13,000 (£8,900) to produce, with much of the work done in university apartments when Vuorensola, his producer Samuli Torssonen and collaborator Jarmo Puskala should have been in class. In the first six months, the production team brought in €100,000 (£68,400) and gained the attention of movie fans and film festivals around Europe and beyond – all through word-of-mouth endorsements and the power of internet downloads.

The historic element was the decision to release it free online and seed it on peer-to-peer networks that run on BitTorrent technology. In doing so, Vuorensola and crew created a global audience in a week. They also used the website to solicit ideas from fans and recruit free help for modelling and graphics work. One fan designed the spaceship, others agreed to translate the script for subtitles. Before long, Vourensola had a film crew numbering hundreds. Many of the production elements that would have taken months to finish were completed in hours.

After the success of Star Wreck, Vourensola is thinking big about the power of collaborative movie production to break the shackles of the Hollywood studio system. He says his next film, dubbed Iron Sky, is likely to be released simultaneously online (though it won’t necessarily be free), on DVD and on the big screen.

Vourensola believes that the net is the single best way to research film ideas, recruit talent, distribute and market a production. "It’s the way to get people to see what you are doing, not just in underground film festivals, but people all over the world," he says. "The fact is, it is a wonderful way for people to contact you."

In the coming months, Vourensola hopes to build a collaborative platform where all movie makers can share ideas and recruit production skills. He’s already attracted a big technology partner in Hewlett-Packard, and the film audio specialists NHT will help with production of Iron Sky. Even some Hollywood studios have expressed interest in helping out with the project, he says.

"This next film definitely won’t take seven years," he vows.

Explore Tech & Web

• Personal Tech

• The Web

• Gadgets & Gaming

Times recommends

• Sony Reader could kill off the book
• Make 3D images with your own camera
• Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games