Kati Outinen
Trying to escape her broken past, Sarah O’Neill is building a new life on the fringes of a backwood rural town with her young son Chris. A terrifying encounter with a mysterious neighbour shatters her fragile security, throwing Sarah into a spiralling nightmare of paranoia and mistrust, as she tries to uncover if the disturbing changes in her little boy are connected to an ominous sinkhole buried deep in the forest that borders their home.
Force of Habit follows the lives of various women throughout one day. Hilla is having a romantic vacation, Emmi is throwing a house party, and Milja is on her way to school when they’re approached by a stranger and things take an unexpected turn. At the same time, Emppu, a young actress, is conflicted as she rehearses for the biggest role of her life. Elsewhere, Aleksi, an inexperienced prosecutor, is preparing for his first court case in haste; Niina, the victim of the crime, has been waiting years to see her case tried. Miia throws a company party, and the mood dramatically changes when her colleague Katja opens up about their boss coming on to her. Miia and a couple of her closest colleagues try to resolve the situation, but how do the others react?
Tadek, a Polish detective, becomes suspicious of a controversial author when the incidents described in his unpublished novel resemble the inner workings of an unsolved murder.
When circumstances conspire to leave Louise, an established Quebec painter, and Ahmed, an aspiring Lebanese-Canadian actor, sharing a remote lake house, the tension rarely abates. Understandably, Louise resents her solitude being trespassed on, particularly by someone whose backstory is hardly airtight.
A restaurateur befriends a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived in Finland.
Two strangers have dropped their kids off at a pickup area for a children’s camp in Helsinki, Finland. A spark of mutual interest is ignited between the man and woman.
High adrenaline Swedish political thriller from the creative talent behind Humans – An extreme right-wing party is heading towards its best election result when the chief of staff at the Justice Department disappears without a trace. Racism, immigration and nationalism are explored in this series praised by New York Times.
Once a hugely popular clown trio, Oskar, Max, and Viktor are now living very different lives. The intense fight that ended their friendship has left them on bad terms for over 40 years. Max is battling colon cancer, Viktor's wife is losing a battle to Alzheimer's, and Oskar, who's never been the best dad, is trying to rescue his daughter from an abusive relationship. The good old days are gone indeed. Despite their situations, each one still tries to maintain a sense of humor. They look fondly on the days when they were slapstick superstars. However, when it comes to the issues that led to their career demise, they just can't seem to let their anger go. As they hesitantly agree to a reunion, they begin to find that the only way back to the top is through forgiveness.
An comedy set in 1960s Helsinki. The story revolves around Elsa, a resolute hatmaker who is in complete control of her life. Besides running her shop, she sometimes doubles as a fortune teller. When Jan, a Czechoslovakian jazz musician and Elsa's old lover comes to town to perform at a "peace and friendship festival", her well-organised life is jolted out of balance.
Naked Harbour is a movie about Finnish love in the year 2011. It is a story about people who seek love and acceptance at any cost. During one winter week all its characters face something irreversible.
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.
It is 1595. Brutal wars have just ended in an uneasy peace between Protestant Sweden and Orthodox Russia. We focus on the spiritual defeats of two conquered Finnish brothers, one a hardened near-psychopathic war hero, the other a gentle scientist in an age with no use for such men. They find themselves in the swampy interior, demarcating the new border with a unit of sadistic Russians.
Self-taught philosopher Konsta Pylkkänen guides a group of researchers through Finland's Kainuu wilderness in the hopes of having a "sinistä ajatusta", idea out of the blue. While firing upon a hybrid of the hazel grouse and the western capercaillie, kinds of birds, he indeed makes a scientific discovery.
A sort of "Divorce Finnish Style," Mika Kaurismäki's rambunctious comedy, The House of Branching Love , recounts the breakup of a thirty-something professional couple - Juhani, a family therapist, and his wife, Tuula, a successful business trainer.
Haunted by his traumatic past and cautious about the prospects of an uncertain future, a fourteen year old boy named Juhani winds up in an isolated boys' home known as The Island. Juhani has been shuttled between foster homes and temporary families for the past six years, leaving any prospect of stability in his life a faded dream. When Juhani winds up in a remote shelter for troubled youth known as The Island, he has little idea of how ruthless superintendent Olavi Harjula can truly be.
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.
Two boys grow up together in town of Pajala at 60's united by rock-n-roll music.
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.
Ippe and Papu are two teenagers spending the summer, when they get into trouble with their drug-dealer. They are forced to act as drug-mules. Along the way they meet a new girl, Mia.
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.
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?
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.
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'.
An episode in the life of Nikander, a garbage man, involving the death of a co-worker, an affair and much more.
In the punk rock era of the late 1970s three restless teenagers, two boys and a girl, spend their time in and out of a special class for problem kids. Jussi seldom sees his parents at home, so he is free to indulge in petty crimes, pranks, and getting drunk with his friend Pete. Jussi falls in love with equally rebellious classmate Lissu (Aki Kaurismäki's favourite actress Kati Outinen in her debut role), but the lovers' plan to run away together fails dramatically.
A wife who has cheated on her husband for 40 years reflects on her behaviour and the benefits she has reaped.
