Aki Kaurismäki
Music video of a song from the 2017 film "The Other Side of Hope" by Aki Kaurismäki.
A restaurateur befriends a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived in Finland.
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.
A man down on his luck ends up in prison. There he ironically finds that music is his passion in life.
Juice Leskinen & Grand Slam live set recorded in 1988.
Four voices and their visions of Guimarães, cradle city of the Portuguese nation and European Capital of Culture in 2012.
Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and struggling author, has given up his literary ambitions and relocated to the port city Le Havre. He leads a simple life based around his wife Arletty, his favourite bar and his not too profitable profession as a shoeshiner. As Arletty suddenly becomes seriously ill, Marcel's path crosses with an underage illegal immigrant from Africa, who needs Marcel's help to hide from the police.
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.
17 men named Frank walk across Seattle hoping to find a better life. A remake of Calamari Union (1985).
Workers of a foundry eat their lunch and watch Lumiére brothers film Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895).
A collective film of 33 shorts directed by different directors about their feeling about cinema.
Koistinen is a sad sack, a man without affect or friends. He's a night-watchman in Helsinki with ideas of starting his own business, but nothing to go with those intentions. He sometimes talks a bit with a woman who runs a snack trailer near his work. Out of the blue, a young sophisticated blonde woman attaches herself to Koistinen. He thinks of her as his girlfriend, he takes her on her rounds.
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
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.
The second part of Aki Kaurismäki's "Finland" trilogy, the film follows a man who arrives in Helsinki and gets beaten up so severely he develops amnesia. Unable to remember his name or anything from his past life, he cannot get a job or an apartment, so he starts living on the outskirts of the city and slowly starts putting his life back on track.
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.
Tram driver Lauri looses his job. Shortly later, the restaurant where his wife Ilona works as a headwaitress is closed. Too proud, to receive money from the social welfare system, they hardly try to find new jobs. But they are completely unlucky and clumsy, one disaster is followed by the next. Finally, their courage, confidence, and their unbreakable love triumph over the fate.
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".
Lugubrious Finns Valto and Reino take to the road in search of coffee and vodka, without which their lives are not worth living. But their reveries are interrupted by the arrival of garrulous Russian Klaudia and Estonian Tatiana - who are clearly interested in the two men, despite the language barrier. But what are the chances of getting a response from men who prefer staring at vodka bottles to talking?
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.
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
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.
Life of a member of the rock band Leningrad Cowboys from birth to moving away from home.
Iris has a soul-deadening job as a quality-control worker watching boxes of matches go by on an assembly line all day. At night, she eats silently with her dour mother and stepfather. One weekend, wearing her new red dress at a local dance, she ends up going home with Aarne, whom she mistakenly believes is her new boyfriend. When she discovers that she's pregnant, years of pent-up rage explode in a shocking outburst.
After fifteen years' service, Henri Boulanger is made redundant from his job. Shocked, he attempts suicide, but can't go through with it, so he hires a contract killer in a seedy bar to murder him at some unspecified time in the future. But almost immediately he meets and falls in love with Margaret, a flower-seller, which makes Henri realise that his life has some meaning after all. But when he goes back to the bar to cancel the contract, he finds it has been demolished - and there's no way he can get in touch with the killer...
Jonathan Ross Presents for One Week Only: Aki Kaurismaki
The Leningrad Cowboys, a group of Russian musicians, and their manager, travel to America seeking fame and fortune. As they cross the country, trying to get to a wedding in Mexico, they are followed by the village idiot, who wishes to join the band.
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.
A bizarre black-and-white film noir reworking of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'.
A collection of short films and music videos by Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, featuring The Leningrad Cowboys
Two men, Nieminen and Varjola, commit a mail van robbery. Varjola betrays his friend: shoots him and takes the loot. Nieminen is arrested, but he refuses to reveal his accomplice's name. On his first leave on prison Nieminen finds Varjola in a small town, where he has became the mayor. Varjola, of course, is shocked to see his old friend again.
A member of the rock band Leningrad Cowboys escapes from prison and starts looking for his girlfriend.
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.
An episode in the life of Nikander, a garbage man, involving the death of a co-worker, an affair and much more.
Calamari Union is an allegorical movie that tells the story of sixteen men all of whom are called Frank (inspired by Frank Armoton) apart from a single confrere, Pekka. Collectively the Franks and Pekka are unhappy with the perceived oppression they face in their district of Helsinki, Kallio, and decide to move to another, Eira, imagining it to be an unspoiled place where people can live lives of dignity. The journey is an ironic one given that both districts are not so far apart. In this spirit, their journey across the city takes on epic proportions with each of the travellers gradually falling by the wayside due to such travails as marriage, work, and death. In its entirety the film is a wry discussion of humanity within a system that regards humans as subservient components.
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.
Young Alex Sammako has seen his brothers defy the law in a series of deeds that first land them in jail, and then, after they escape and return to their rural home, land them back in the lap of their locally notorious family. Alex wants nothing to do with them. He is in love with Mirja, whose family is not that different from the Sammakos, but who shares Alex's viewpoints and feelings. Not helping matters is a police department convinced that all Sammakos are bad, and the family itself, pressuring Alex to follow in their murky footsteps.
An adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel, updated to present-day Helsinki. Slaughterhouse worker Rahikainen murders a man, and is forced to live with the consequences of his actions...
A criminal, his friend and his former girlfriend find their lives intertwining with each other.
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.
A collection of short films and music videos by Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, featuring the Leningrad Cowboys
