Aki Kaurismäki
Director · b. 1957 · Orimattila, Finland
Aki Olavi Kaurismäki (Finnish: [ˈɑki ˈkɑu̯rismæki]; born April 4,1957; Orimattila) is a Finnish film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and actor. He is best known for the award-winning Drifting Clouds (1996), The Man Without a Past (2002), Le Havre (2011), The Other Side of Hope (2017) and Fallen Leaves (2023), as well as for the mockumentary Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989). He is described as Finland's best-known film director. He is the younger brother of director and screenwriter Mika Kaurismäki. After graduating in media studies from the University of Tampere, Kaurismäki worked as a bricklayer, postman, and dish-washer, long before pursuing his interest in cinema, first as a critic, and later as a screenwriter & director. He started his career as a co-screenwriter and actor in films made by his older brother, Mika Kaurismäki. He played the main role in Mika's film The Liar (1981). Together they founded the production company Villealfa Filmproductions and later the Midnight Sun Film Festival. His debut as an independent director was Crime and Punishment (1983), an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel set in modern Helsinki. He gained worldwide attention with Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989). Kaurismäki's film Ariel (1988) was entered into the 16th Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Prix FIPRESCI. Kaurismäki's most acclaimed film has been The Man Without a Past, which won the Grand Prix and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category in 2003. However, Kaurismäki refused to attend the Oscar ceremony, asserting that he did not feel like partying in a country that was in a state of war. Kaurismäki's next film, Lights in the Dusk, was also chosen to be Finland's nominee for best foreign-language film, but Kaurismäki again boycotted the awards and refused the nomination, as a protest against U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy. In 2002 Kaurismäki also boycotted the 40th New York Film Festival in a show of solidarity with the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, who was not given a US visa in time for the festival. Kaurismäki's 2017 film The Other Side of Hope won the Silver Bear for Best Director award at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. At the same festival he also announced that it would be his last film, although the retirement was short-lived as he began filming Fallen Leaves in 2022, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.
Movies22
Movie7.3DramaRomanceNikander, 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.
Movie6.9ComedyCrimeAfter 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.
I Hired a Contract Killer
1990 · 236 votes
Movie5.8DocumentaryAcclaimed 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.
Movie7.0ComedyDramaA 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.
Calamari Union
1985 · 95 votes
Movie6.8DocumentaryDocumentary about Finnish film theaters - about their past, disappearance and future. And at the same time universal story how cinema is undeniably connected with life.
Movie5.3DocumentaryAt the 60th anniversary of Cannes Film Festival, 34 famous directors are followed by camera.
Movie6.2ComedyDramaIn 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.
Aaltra
2004 · 69 votes
Movie6.4CrimeDramaManne, 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.
Movie5.0ComedyShit Happens
1992 · 1 votes
Movie6.4DocumentaryDocumentary about the life of Finnish actor Matti Pellonpää.
Movie7.9DocumentarySeventy 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.
Movie4.5DramaComedyApril 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.
Huhtikuu on kuukausista julmin
1983 · 6 votes
Movie5.8ComedyMusicNot 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.
Movie10.0DocumentaryDocumentary filmed on-set during the making of Aki Kaurismaki's "La vie de Boheme"
Movie6.0DocumentaryAki 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.
Aki Kaurismäki
2001 · 4 votes
Movie5.9ComedyAdventureAfter 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.
Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses
1994 · 57 votes
MovieDocumentaryJonathan 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.
Movie6.0DocumentaryA documentary about the making of Le Havre
Il était une fois... Le Havre
2014 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DocumentaryIn 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.
Cinéma Laika
2023 · 2 votes
Movie6.5DocumentaryA 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
Movie10.0TV MovieDocumentaryDocumentary 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.
Léaud l'unique
2001 · 1 votes
Movie6.5ActionThrillerBad Trip, a biker who has been freshly inducted into a gang, flees from them after stealing one of their bikes.
Iron Horsemen
1995 · 2 votes