Aki Kaurismäki

In the heart of the Finnish forest, the long-closed foundry of the little town of Karkkila has come back to life thanks to director Aki Kaurismäki and his creation of the town's first cinema. The peace and calm of the little town of Karkkila, nestled deep in the Finnish forest, is interrupted by unexpected sounds. In the abandoned foundry, noisy building work is taking place. Inside the building, Aki Kaurismäki is both builder and site manager of what is soon to become the Kino Laika cinema. The creation of the cinema is the talk of the town. In the factory still in activity, in a 1960s Cadillac, in a bikers' club, in the local pub, in the woods or in Aki Kaurismäki's former editing room, people start talking about cinema again.

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Acclaimed Finnish director Rauni Mollberg made several scandalous yet widely appreciated films. Former co-worker Veikko Aaltonen’s eye-opening documentary The Dinosaur looks at the relentless, often disturbing directing techniques behind Mollberg’s art and success.

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THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE is dedicated to filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki’s longtime friend and collaborator, the film critic and festival programmer Peter von Bagh. In this new video essay, filmmaker Daniel Raim explores Kaurismäki’s oeuvre through the world of von Bagh.

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A nostalgic look at the birth and death of arthouse film distribution in Russia in the early 2000s. The story of the company Cinema Without Borders and its two founders, Sam Klebanov and Anton Mazurov.

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Piirainen's documentary on the last years of Peter von Bagh.

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TV document about the Finnish music producer Atte Blom.

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Documentary about Finnish film theaters - about their past, disappearance and future. And at the same time universal story how cinema is undeniably connected with life.

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A documentary about the making of Le Havre

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At the 60th anniversary of Cannes Film Festival, 34 famous directors are followed by camera.

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Documentary about the life of Finnish actor Matti Pellonpää.

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Seventy critics and filmmakers discuss cinema around the conflict between the artist and the observer, the creator and the critic. Between 1998 and 2007, Kléber Mendonça Filho recorded testimonies about this relationship in Brazil, the United States and Europe, based on his experience as a critic.

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In this pitch black comedy the rivalry between two neighbors escalates into an all out war. Through a maintenance error on a tractor they both end up, paralyzed, in a wheelchair. It seems they are doomed to stay together. They no longer focus their rage on each other but on the manufacturer of the tractor, in Helsinki. So get ready for a hilarious wheelchair road movie.

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Documentary about the work of Nouvelle Vague actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, with interview clips, film clips and contributions from directors and actors he has worked with.

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Aki Kaurismäki, the celebrated Finnish filmmaker behind The Man Without a Past (Grand Prix du Jury, Cannes Film Festival 2002) and landmark works including Ariel, Leningrad Cowboys Go America, and Drifting Clouds, is the focus of AKI KAURISMÄKI, the latest release in the Cinema, of Our Time series. The younger half of Finland’s most prolific and irreverent filmmaking partnership, Kaurismäki, alongside his brother Mika Kaurismäki, was instrumental in shaping what became known as the New Finnish Cinema. Since 1981, he has directed twenty-two films, many of which are featured through excerpts in this documentary.

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The Scandinavian entry in the BFI's Century of Cinema series of documentaries

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Bad Trip, a biker who has been freshly inducted into a gang, flees from them after stealing one of their bikes.

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After years of fame and misfortune in Mexico, the members of the Leningrad Cowboys decide to return to their native village. Their former manager Vladimir, who now calls himself Moses lead them on their way home.

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A tribute to the legendary Japanese film director featuring the reflections of filmmakers Lindsay Anderson, Claire Denis, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Aki Kaurismäki, Stanley Kwan, Paul Schrader, and Wim Wenders

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Documentary filmed on-set during the making of Aki Kaurismaki's "La vie de Boheme"

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Jonathan Ross interviews the inscrutable Finnish film director Aki Kaurismäki at The Midnight Sun Film Festival during the release of 'The Match Factory Girl' along with comments from friends, colleagues and fans including highlights from his previous films.

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After losing his job and realizing that he is alone in the world, a businessman opts to voluntarily end his life. Lacking courage, he hires a contract killer to do the job. Then, while awaiting his demise, he meets a woman and promptly falls in love.

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Nikander, a rubbish collector and would-be entrepreneur, finds his plans for success dashed when his business associate dies. One evening, he meets Ilona, a down-on-her-luck cashier, in a local supermarket. Falteringly, a bond begins to develop between them.

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Not to be confused with any of the sequels to Sylvester Stallone's classic Oscar-winning Rocky, this short film from Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki is actually meant as a parody of the late Cold War-era Rocky IV, which saw Stallone's character taking on a juiced-up Russian fighter played by Dolph Lundgren. In this 1986 send-up, Rock'y, played by Silu Seppala, goes head to head with Soviet Igor (Sakari Kuosmanen) and loses.

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A man fakes his own suicide in order to see how his close ones react.

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A group of men all called Frank—except for one named Pekka—have had enough of life in their working-class neighborhood, so they set off for a better existence in the magical seaside district of Eira. But the way is long, and the group face many hurdles including stray dogs and defunct streetlights.

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Anssi Mänttäri’s low-budget movies with their intimate content have become classics. In this black comedy that takes place in Helsinki in summer the main character (played by Mänttäri himself) jumps from one bar and bed to the next. Especially vulgar black humour.

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April is the Cruelest of Months is a 1983 film directed by Suvi-Marja Korvenheimo, also known as Anssi Mänttäri, and the final part of the Korvenheimo trilogy. It was named after the first verse of T. S. Eliot's poem series The Waste Land. The film, shot in ten days, is a satire on the candles of Finnish culture.

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Manne, Harri, and Ville Alfa are rootless twenty-somethings in search of purpose for their banal lives. After Manne steals a priceless painting from a group of petty criminals, Manne and Harri flee from the gangsters across Finland, while Ville goes to Paris. On the road they meet Veera, an old girlfriend of Harri's, and try to avoid the gangsters in pursuit.

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Three young people, two boys and a girl, meet on a Friday evening in an urban post-disaster setting which has brought Helsinki to ruins. The boys' sole purpose of life is to play a Flip-Flop pinball machine.

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A documentary film about a tour of three Finnish rock bands around Saimaa lake system in a steam boat in 1981. The bands (Juice Leskinen Slam, Eppu Normaali and Hassisen Kone) are shown playing songs in their gigs and, in between, the members give intimate interviews or just act plain silly and have a good time.

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Talkative, hyperactive young drifter Ville Alfa goes around Helsinki, basically trying to borrow money from friends and strangers by means of an incessant delivery of quirky and snappy quasi-intellectual lines and fabricated excuses.

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In modern-day Helsinki, two lonely souls in search of love meet by chance in a karaoke bar. However, their path to happiness is beset by obstacles – from lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism, and a charming stray dog.

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A restaurateur befriends a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived in Finland.

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A political drama set in the fictional country of Illyria between 1943 and 1945, the story is about the assassination of a leading politician. The country, an ally of Nazi Germany, is on the verge of being annexed to the Eastern Bloc. Kaurismäki's TV adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's play Les Mains Sales (Dirty Hands) tells the story of Hugo (Matti Pellonpää) who has just been released from prison. Before going to prison, he has worked as a journalist at his party's newspaper. This timid journalist, who uses the pseudonym Raskolnikov, wants to advance in his career and gets his chance when Hoederer (Sulevi Peltola), the leader of the party, has to be eliminated.

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Juice Leskinen & Grand Slam live set recorded in 1988.

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Four voices and their visions of Guimarães, cradle city of the Portuguese nation and European Capital of Culture in 2012.

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A typical day in the life of a lonely man who works in an unsuccessful tavern located in the historical center of Guimarães, an old town in Portugal. During the day, the man spends his time coming up with new menu items for his tavern, while at night he gets ready to meet someone special.

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In the French harbor city of Le Havre, an elderly shoeshiner with an ailing wife crosses paths with a young African refugee pursued by the police for deportation.

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In a Chechen city recovering after the war, a man disappears. As daily life goes on, those in search are drawn into a world where encounters with diviners and legal advisors, with the torturers and the tortured, with secret prisons and mythical lakes all become commonplace.

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The story of an overly protective and controlling father who suspects incest is taking place between his own son and daughter. These growing suspicions and concerns cause the father to become delusional and unrelenting in his quest to end the love affair between his children.

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A young woman recovering from a suicide attempt arrives in a war-torn city and gets a job as a waitress at a local bar. Jeanne befriends the author of an unpopular drunkard, but fate has other plans for their relationship .

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17 men named Frank walk across Seattle hoping to find a better life. A remake of Calamari Union (1985).

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Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.

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Workers of a foundry eat their lunch and watch Lumiére brothers film Leaving the Factory (1895).

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Outcast by his co-workers and living alone, Koistinen is a security guard who works the night shift in a luxury shopping mall in Helsinki. But when icy blonde Mirja approaches him, the lonely Koistinen falls helplessly for her, unaware she is manipulating him for her criminal boyfriend.

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Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

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A lyrical documentary captures a small mountain village in Portugal, showcasing its timeless essence amid historical changes. As men leave for stone-cutting work, women take charge in their absence, surrounded by snowy mountains and wandering sheep and cattle, with dogs guarding against wolves.

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Ten Minutes Older is a 2002 film project consisting of two compilation feature films entitled The Trumpet and The Cello. The project was conceived by the producer Nicolas McClintock as a reflection on the theme of time at the turn of the Millennium. Fifteen celebrated film-makers were invited to create their own vision of what time means in ten minutes of film.

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A typically idiosyncratic mini-mystery about a middle-aged man who gets out of prison, sells his shares in a company and announces that he’s heading off to Siberia to get married. Central scene, in which he convinces a woman to come with him, takes place in a Finnish rockabilly club. The Hitchcockian pacing, as the man endeavours to make his train, supplies nice momentum, and wrap-up provides a satisfying revelation as to what’s actually afoot.

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Arriving in Helsinki, a nameless man is beaten within an inch of his life by thugs, miraculously recovering only to find that he has completely lost his memory. Back on the streets, he attempts to begin again from zero, befriending a moody dog and becoming besotted with a Salvation Army volunteer.

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A self-loving fictional autobiography of author Kari Hotakainen.

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The relationship between a father and his son is an infinite story with very few words. Silence is golden when it comes to expressing emotions.

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About the love of Lenin and the Finnish girl Mariot, from whom he had a child, who subsequently disappeared without a trace.

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A farmer's wife is seduced into running away from her stolid older husband by a city slicker, who enslaves her in a brothel.

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A criminal investigator arrives to investigate the murder of Annikki Niemi in a village whose residents remain silent about the killing. Local boss Onni Pukari and his shady associates try to prevent the investigator from finding the murderer.

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The ever-poker-faced Ilona loses her job as a restaurant hostess, as her tram driver husband, Lauri, also finds himself out of work. Together they must hit the streets of Helsinki, facing up to hardship and humiliation in their quest for survival, guided through the gloom by a ray of hope.

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Bad Trip, a biker who has been freshly inducted into a gang, flees from them after stealing one of their bikes.

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A 57-minute documentary of a Helsinki concert featuring the Leningrad Cowboys and the Alexandrov Red Army Choir and Ballet, who collaborate on a number of US Rock songs sung in English (like "Sweet Home, Alabama") as well as more traditional Russian songs like the "Volga Boatman."

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After years of fame and misfortune in Mexico, the members of the Leningrad Cowboys decide to return to their native village. Their former manager Vladimir, who now calls himself Moses lead them on their way home.

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Two Finnish men agree to drive an Estonian woman and a Russian woman to a harbor.

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Juhani Haavisto returns to his childhood home from the seas and is confronted by his wheelchair-bound, demented father Eino and the traumas of sexual abuse and violence he experienced as a child.

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For the past 20 years, a cleaner Anna has been living an honest life. She takes charge of the life of her alcoholic lover, a retiree Harri. Chased by the loan sharks, Harri has one more heist to pull off. Like two old thieves.

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A week-long glimpse into the wretched existence of Ripa, a long-haired, hard-drinking lug. He is also a filmmaker-wannabee, whose last two projects were condemned for their sex and violence. A Parasite Deluxe, who barely recalls his previous night, Ripa cruises the bars and meets bank-teller Tiina.

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Esa is a small time crook who has been precisely released from prison. He starts to make money by mugging people. One day psychiatrist Lindström rings Esa's doorbell. He has a very strange request: he wants Esa to maltreat him. Esa accepts this request, but he is not aware of Lindström's bad intentions.

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Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.

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After losing his job and realizing that he is alone in the world, a businessman opts to voluntarily end his life. Lacking courage, he hires a contract killer to do the job. Then, while awaiting his demise, he meets a woman and promptly falls in love.

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