Aki Kaurismäki's Fallen Leaves is screening exclusively on Mubi in many countries.Fallen Leaves.There’s a moment early in Aki Kaurismäki’s latest film, Fallen Leaves (2023), that will surely tug at the heartstrings of shy lovers everywhere. A man, Holappa (played by Jussi Vatanen), and a woman, Ansa (Alma Pöysti), sit across from each other in a bar. Between them, his friend tries vainly to flirt with hers, getting nowhere, but Holappa and Ansa themselves do not speak, and instead merely stare meekly into their drinks, the gap of a few meters opening up like a yawning chasm. Then, for just a moment, Holappa looks up from his beer and their eyes meet. And as they do, the first cascading piano chords of Franz Schubert’s “Serenade” are heard and a besuited man takes the karaoke stage to start singing: “Softly my songs plead / through the night for...
- 2/4/2024
- MUBI
Alma Pöysti as Ansa and Jussi Vatanen as Holappa, in Fallen Leaves. Courtesy of Mubi.
Fallen Leaves is a romantic comedy from Finland, with the driest of humor. Bone-dry does not cover it; this is a Sahara Desert of dry humor. No one cracks a smile and no one winks at the audience as they deadpan their satiric comedy lines. This is also the bad-luck couple of the year, who can’t seem to catch a break, except through the most absurd of coincidence. Fallen Leaves is undeniably funny, in it deadpan Nordic way but you have to meet the humor on its own terms. It is not there to help you.
If all that sounds good to you, dive in. Personally I like Nordic humor and I appreciate the film’s touches of social commentary in its absurdist humor, but it is not for everyone.
In Helsinki, two lonely people meet by chance.
Fallen Leaves is a romantic comedy from Finland, with the driest of humor. Bone-dry does not cover it; this is a Sahara Desert of dry humor. No one cracks a smile and no one winks at the audience as they deadpan their satiric comedy lines. This is also the bad-luck couple of the year, who can’t seem to catch a break, except through the most absurd of coincidence. Fallen Leaves is undeniably funny, in it deadpan Nordic way but you have to meet the humor on its own terms. It is not there to help you.
If all that sounds good to you, dive in. Personally I like Nordic humor and I appreciate the film’s touches of social commentary in its absurdist humor, but it is not for everyone.
In Helsinki, two lonely people meet by chance.
- 12/8/2023
- by Cate Marquis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
European Film Promotion and the Arab Cinema Center have revealed the final three nominees for the fifth edition of the Arab Critics’ Awards for European Films after the jury viewed 25 films from as many European countries in the shortlist.
Due to the postponement of this year’s edition of the Cairo Film Festival, which hosted the awards ceremony in previous years, the announcement of the winning film will take place during the sixth edition of the El Gouna Film Festival, which is scheduled to run from Dec. 14-21.
The nominated films are Serbia’s “Lost Country” by Vladimir Perišić — winner of the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the best actor award at the Sarajevo Film Festival; Finland’s “Fallen Leaves” by Aki Kaurismäki — winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival; and Italy’s “Io Capitano” by Matteo Garrone — winner of...
Due to the postponement of this year’s edition of the Cairo Film Festival, which hosted the awards ceremony in previous years, the announcement of the winning film will take place during the sixth edition of the El Gouna Film Festival, which is scheduled to run from Dec. 14-21.
The nominated films are Serbia’s “Lost Country” by Vladimir Perišić — winner of the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the best actor award at the Sarajevo Film Festival; Finland’s “Fallen Leaves” by Aki Kaurismäki — winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival; and Italy’s “Io Capitano” by Matteo Garrone — winner of...
- 12/6/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
If you’re vibing with Aki Kaurismäki‘s droll wavelength of dry comedies about ordinary people in Helsinki, “Fallen Leaves” is definitely for you. This warm and witty romantic comedy about two lost souls adrift, who eventually find each other on the existential carousel to nowhere, won a Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival (where Ruben Östlund served as Jury President) and now represents Finland in the 2024 Best International Feature Film Oscar race. IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for this Mubi release below on the heels of its New York Film Festival premiere.
The latest film from the Finnish director of “The Man Without a Past” and “Le Havre” tells the story of two lonely people. Ansa (whose name literally means “trapped” in Finnish and who is played wonderfully by Alma Pöysti) and Holappa, in between soul-numbing blue-collar jobs, meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and maybe discover the first,...
The latest film from the Finnish director of “The Man Without a Past” and “Le Havre” tells the story of two lonely people. Ansa (whose name literally means “trapped” in Finnish and who is played wonderfully by Alma Pöysti) and Holappa, in between soul-numbing blue-collar jobs, meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and maybe discover the first,...
- 10/12/2023
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Finland has selected Fallen Leaves, the latest feature from celebrated filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki, as its entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2024 Oscars.
The pic, which debuted in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of two lonely people who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path towards this honorable goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s general tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking their happiness.
Out of Cannes, Deadline’s Pete Hammond described the pic as “a flat-out gem” that’s “wonderful, wryly funny, and poignant.” Mubi has nabbed the feature for several territories, including North America, the UK, Ireland, Latin America,...
The pic, which debuted in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of two lonely people who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path towards this honorable goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s general tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking their happiness.
Out of Cannes, Deadline’s Pete Hammond described the pic as “a flat-out gem” that’s “wonderful, wryly funny, and poignant.” Mubi has nabbed the feature for several territories, including North America, the UK, Ireland, Latin America,...
- 9/13/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Fallen Leaves, Aki Kaurismäki’s first film since 2017’s The Other Side of Hope, took home the Jury Prize from this year’s Cannes while charming critics more than just about anything else in competition. His “gentle tragicomedy” marks the fourth part of a working-class series, following Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, and The Match Factory Girl, bearing influence from Ozu, Bresson, and Chaplin.
Ahead of a fall-festival run and November 17 theatrical release, Mubi have unveiled a brief but lovely teaser that confirms Rory O’Connor’s Cannes diagnosis of “a charming, moving, bittersweet romance packed with all the lovely things we’ve come to associate with him after four decades.” As he continued, “The locations and colors still come in admirable shades of mustard and pea soup––as do the characters and their moods. As a film, Fallen Leaves could hardly be simpler––two people living separate, lonesome lives meet and...
Ahead of a fall-festival run and November 17 theatrical release, Mubi have unveiled a brief but lovely teaser that confirms Rory O’Connor’s Cannes diagnosis of “a charming, moving, bittersweet romance packed with all the lovely things we’ve come to associate with him after four decades.” As he continued, “The locations and colors still come in admirable shades of mustard and pea soup––as do the characters and their moods. As a film, Fallen Leaves could hardly be simpler––two people living separate, lonesome lives meet and...
- 8/30/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Aki Kaurismäki’s Cannes Jury Prize winner “Fallen Leaves” has snagged the 2023 Intl. Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) Grand Prix for best film of the past year. All films released after July 1 2022 were eligible.
The Fipresci Grand Prix will be presented to Kaurismäki at the San Sebastian Film Festival’s opening night gala ceremony on Sept. 22, a tradition that dates back to 1999. “Fallen Leaves” will also play in San Sebastian’s Perlak best of fests section.
Chosen by 669 Fipresci members from three finalists — the other two were “The Banshees of Inisherin,” by Martin McDonagh, and “Tár,” by Todd Field – “Fallen Leaves’” triumph reflects the general critical rapture with which the film was greeted at Cannes, though Variety didn’t join the party.
This is the second time that Kaurismäki will have received this recognition from the international critics, which went in 2017 to
“The Other Side of Hope.”
The fourth part...
The Fipresci Grand Prix will be presented to Kaurismäki at the San Sebastian Film Festival’s opening night gala ceremony on Sept. 22, a tradition that dates back to 1999. “Fallen Leaves” will also play in San Sebastian’s Perlak best of fests section.
Chosen by 669 Fipresci members from three finalists — the other two were “The Banshees of Inisherin,” by Martin McDonagh, and “Tár,” by Todd Field – “Fallen Leaves’” triumph reflects the general critical rapture with which the film was greeted at Cannes, though Variety didn’t join the party.
This is the second time that Kaurismäki will have received this recognition from the international critics, which went in 2017 to
“The Other Side of Hope.”
The fourth part...
- 8/23/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Boy meets girl is a tale as old as time and one that Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki has visited several times in a career that has spanned forty years, including in his latest romantic tragicomedy “Fallen Leaves.” His 20th feature film is a continuation of what’s been dubbed his Proletariat Trilogy, following “Shadows in Paradise,” “Ariel, “and “The Match Factory Girl.” While each film follows similar plotting, Kaurismäki places a direct emphasis on his unique working-class characters and a humanistic worldview, despite the external harshness of the world around them.
Continue reading ‘Fallen Leaves’ Review: Aki Kaurismäki’s Romantic Tragicomedy Finds Love In A Hopeless Place [Karlovy Vary] at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Fallen Leaves’ Review: Aki Kaurismäki’s Romantic Tragicomedy Finds Love In A Hopeless Place [Karlovy Vary] at The Playlist.
- 7/1/2023
- by Marya E. Gates
- The Playlist
Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki). What do we mean by “late films”? For Theodor Adorno, the maturity of late works of art did not resemble the kind one finds in fruit: “they are, for the most part, not round, but furrowed, even ravaged.” Granted, Adorno was writing about Beethoven, but this idea of contrarian lateness still survives in debates around the term’s use in cinema. Intransigent and confrontational, late films are both a summation of a filmmaker’s oeuvre and a stripping down of their style. They’re masterful distillations of decades of craft, sheared, in a senescent bid for simplicity, until whatever’s left is honed and impenetrable to the point of alienation.I was thinking of this on my last days in Cannes, as the festival kept yielding new works by august masters: Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses, Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped, Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer,...
- 5/31/2023
- MUBI
In 2006, Aki Kaurismäki was asked what he felt young filmmakers lacked. His response was almost Cartesian: “Humility,” the director suggested, “Above all, it is necessary to forget oneself.” The Finnish auteur returns with Fallen Leaves, a charming, moving, bittersweet romance packed with all the lovely things we’ve come to associate with him after four decades. The locations and colors still come in admirable shades of mustard and pea soup––as do the characters and their moods. As a film, Fallen Leaves could hardly be simpler––two people living separate, lonesome lives meet and maybe fall in love––but there is beauty in that simplicity and, as ever, Kaurismäki’s characters live far richer inner lives.
Few filmmakers warm the soul with such economy: Fallen Leaves is funny, heartbreaking, and only 82 minutes long. Alma Pöysti stars as Ansa, a supermarket worker who loses her job when she’s caught pocketing an expired sandwich.
Few filmmakers warm the soul with such economy: Fallen Leaves is funny, heartbreaking, and only 82 minutes long. Alma Pöysti stars as Ansa, a supermarket worker who loses her job when she’s caught pocketing an expired sandwich.
- 5/25/2023
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
The tragicomedy had is world premiere in Cannes on Monday.
Mubi has acquired Aki Kaurismäki’s Cannes competition film Fallen Leaves for North America, the UK, Ireland, Latin America and Turkey.
The global distributor and streamer plans a theatrical release for the Finnish-languge tragicomedy, which had its world premiere on Monday (May 22) in the Cannes official competition.
The film tells the story of two lonely people who meet by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first and ultimate love of their lives while dealing with the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers and other romantic complications.
Mubi has acquired Aki Kaurismäki’s Cannes competition film Fallen Leaves for North America, the UK, Ireland, Latin America and Turkey.
The global distributor and streamer plans a theatrical release for the Finnish-languge tragicomedy, which had its world premiere on Monday (May 22) in the Cannes official competition.
The film tells the story of two lonely people who meet by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first and ultimate love of their lives while dealing with the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers and other romantic complications.
- 5/24/2023
- by John Hazelton
- ScreenDaily
Mubi has acquired Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves” for major markets including North America following its well-received debut in Cannes.
The indie streamer and distributor also picked up the movie for the U.K., Ireland, Latin America and Turkey.
The competition title from the Finnish auteur had a number of bidders following its world premiere on Monday. Mubi will release the film theatrically, with specific release plans to be announced in due course.
The film, which carries Kaurismäki’s signature deadpan delivery and comic one-liners, tells the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find love. However, being together proves challenging given the personal vices they must first overcome. The tragicomedy is the fourth part of Aki Kaurismäki’s working-class trilogy. Previous instalments include “Shadows in Paradise,” “Ariel” and “The Match Factory Girl.”
“Fallen Leaves...
The indie streamer and distributor also picked up the movie for the U.K., Ireland, Latin America and Turkey.
The competition title from the Finnish auteur had a number of bidders following its world premiere on Monday. Mubi will release the film theatrically, with specific release plans to be announced in due course.
The film, which carries Kaurismäki’s signature deadpan delivery and comic one-liners, tells the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find love. However, being together proves challenging given the personal vices they must first overcome. The tragicomedy is the fourth part of Aki Kaurismäki’s working-class trilogy. Previous instalments include “Shadows in Paradise,” “Ariel” and “The Match Factory Girl.”
“Fallen Leaves...
- 5/24/2023
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Mubi has snapped up rights to the acclaimed feature Fallen Leaves, written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki, in a competitive situation, following its world premiere in Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
While specifics as to the release plans have yet to be announced, aside from the fact that the title will go to theaters, Mubi said on Wednesday that it’s picked up rights for North America, UK, Ireland, Latin America and Turkey.
The 20th feature from Kaurismäki, whose Cannes prize winner The Man Without a Past went on to nab a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination in 2003, Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path towards this honorable goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism,...
While specifics as to the release plans have yet to be announced, aside from the fact that the title will go to theaters, Mubi said on Wednesday that it’s picked up rights for North America, UK, Ireland, Latin America and Turkey.
The 20th feature from Kaurismäki, whose Cannes prize winner The Man Without a Past went on to nab a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination in 2003, Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path towards this honorable goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism,...
- 5/24/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
To judge by Aki Kaurismäki’s typically wry and winsome “Fallen Leaves,” the Finnish auteur’s first movie since threatening to retire after “The Other Side of Hope” came out 2017, only two things have any significant importance have happened in the world over the last six years.
The first and most pressing of those is the war in Ukraine, which bleeds into Ansa’s (Alma Pöysti) already depressing kitchen every time the supermarket cashier dares to turn on her radio after work. Listening to news of the latest atrocity in Kyiv is the only thing worse than eating her microwaved dinner in the complete silence Ansa settles for when she can’t find anything more comforting on the airwaves. She doesn’t need any further evidence of the darkness outside her window, thank you very much.
The other major historical milestone since 2017 was obviously the release of Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die,...
The first and most pressing of those is the war in Ukraine, which bleeds into Ansa’s (Alma Pöysti) already depressing kitchen every time the supermarket cashier dares to turn on her radio after work. Listening to news of the latest atrocity in Kyiv is the only thing worse than eating her microwaved dinner in the complete silence Ansa settles for when she can’t find anything more comforting on the airwaves. She doesn’t need any further evidence of the darkness outside her window, thank you very much.
The other major historical milestone since 2017 was obviously the release of Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die,...
- 5/24/2023
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Aki Kaurismäki, the deadpan cockeyed minimalist of Finland, has become the ultimate illustration of the principle that if you make movies in the same mood and style, with the same monosyllabic bombed-out hipster vibe, for a period of 30 years, your movies may not have changed — but the world around them has, so the films will have a totally different effect.
In “Fallen Leaves,” the Kaurismäki bauble that’s showing at Cannes this year, there’s actually a scene in which a character uses a computer. The film’s heroine, Ansa (Alma Pöysti), loses her job as a supermarket worker, and to find another gig she rents an Hp laptop at a makeshift Internet café that charges 10 Euro for half an hour. Apart from that, the movie unfolds in that scruffy and sparsely decorated so-familiar-it’s-cozy pre-tech Kaurismäki zone, where people still use electric adding machines or listen to a bulky...
In “Fallen Leaves,” the Kaurismäki bauble that’s showing at Cannes this year, there’s actually a scene in which a character uses a computer. The film’s heroine, Ansa (Alma Pöysti), loses her job as a supermarket worker, and to find another gig she rents an Hp laptop at a makeshift Internet café that charges 10 Euro for half an hour. Apart from that, the movie unfolds in that scruffy and sparsely decorated so-familiar-it’s-cozy pre-tech Kaurismäki zone, where people still use electric adding machines or listen to a bulky...
- 5/23/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
“It felt like this bloody world needed some love stories now,” Fallen Leaves director Aki Kaurismäki said of his Palme d’Or contender this afternoon.
With war still raging in Ukraine, the Finnish auteur, who does not mince his words, focused several times on themes of love as an antidote to global conflict.
The movie features clips of the Ukraine War in radio broadcasts and Kaurismäki said he “couldn’t have done any film during the war without commenting somehow, so I commented with radio.”
“It felt like this bloody world needed some love stories now, but it doesn’t matter what we do in Finland,” he added.
Documenting the war in his movie was important so people can “watch it and understand how cruel and stupid” the conflict was years down the line, he added. In a similar vein, Kaurismäki pointed to his inclusion of the Tiananmen Square massacre...
With war still raging in Ukraine, the Finnish auteur, who does not mince his words, focused several times on themes of love as an antidote to global conflict.
The movie features clips of the Ukraine War in radio broadcasts and Kaurismäki said he “couldn’t have done any film during the war without commenting somehow, so I commented with radio.”
“It felt like this bloody world needed some love stories now, but it doesn’t matter what we do in Finland,” he added.
Documenting the war in his movie was important so people can “watch it and understand how cruel and stupid” the conflict was years down the line, he added. In a similar vein, Kaurismäki pointed to his inclusion of the Tiananmen Square massacre...
- 5/23/2023
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
Early in Aki Kaurismäki’s slender but enormously satisfying Fallen Leaves (Kuolleet Lehdet), the male protagonist is invited by his buddy to go to Friday night karaoke. “Tough guys don’t sing,” he replies, in the signature affectless deadpan shared by all the Finnish master’s characters. But that tough guy turns out to be yearning for love, refusing to give up when a lost phone number and a series of other obstacles keep him from a woman he barely knows. In a sense the tough guy is also Kaurismäki himself, inhabiting a world defined by dourness and melancholy but always seeking pathways to comfort, hope and light.
The director had spoken of retirement after his beautiful Syrian refugee tale The Other Side of Hope in 2017, and this return after six years is waggishly described as a work previously believed to be lost. It’s an expansion of Kaurismäki’s Proletariat Trilogy,...
The director had spoken of retirement after his beautiful Syrian refugee tale The Other Side of Hope in 2017, and this return after six years is waggishly described as a work previously believed to be lost. It’s an expansion of Kaurismäki’s Proletariat Trilogy,...
- 5/22/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
On paper, the 76th Cannes Film Festival looks like an embarrassment of riches, assembling no shortage of big guns in terms of major-name filmmakers.
Pretty much every list of hotly anticipated titles will be topped by Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, an epic Western crime drama based on David Grann’s nonfiction book about the murder of Indigenous Americans on tribal land in 1920s Oklahoma. Likewise, it seems redundant to include Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, given the legions of fans already jostling to watch Harrison Ford crack the whip one last time in James Mangold’s conclusion of the beloved action-adventure franchise.
New works from celebrated filmmakers are simply too numerous to cram into a rundown of just ten titles, so their absence here should not be misinterpreted as lack of interest.
That includes Ken Loach’s story of tensions caused by the arrival...
Pretty much every list of hotly anticipated titles will be topped by Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, an epic Western crime drama based on David Grann’s nonfiction book about the murder of Indigenous Americans on tribal land in 1920s Oklahoma. Likewise, it seems redundant to include Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, given the legions of fans already jostling to watch Harrison Ford crack the whip one last time in James Mangold’s conclusion of the beloved action-adventure franchise.
New works from celebrated filmmakers are simply too numerous to cram into a rundown of just ten titles, so their absence here should not be misinterpreted as lack of interest.
That includes Ken Loach’s story of tensions caused by the arrival...
- 5/16/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival later this month, the trailer has dropped for Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves via distributor The Match Factory. His first film since 2017’s The Other Side of Hope, Fallen Leaves draws from the filmmaker’s established working-class trilogy, which includes his previous films Shadows in Paradise (1986), Ariel (1988) and The Match Factory Girl (1990). Per an official synopsis: “Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love […]
The post Trailer Watch: Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Trailer Watch: Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 5/10/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival later this month, the trailer has dropped for Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves via distributor The Match Factory. His first film since 2017’s The Other Side of Hope, Fallen Leaves draws from the filmmaker’s established working-class trilogy, which includes his previous films Shadows in Paradise (1986), Ariel (1988) and The Match Factory Girl (1990). Per an official synopsis: “Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love […]
The post Trailer Watch: Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Trailer Watch: Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 5/10/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
"I don't even know your name." "I'll tell you next time." The Match Factory has revealed a trailer for Aki Kaurismäki's latest film Fallen Leaves, his light-hearted romantic "tragicomedy". This is premiering at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival later this month, playing in the Main Competition, not his first time either (he won the Grand Prix once before in Cannes for The Man Without a Past). Two lonely people who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first love of their lives. "With this film, Kaurismäki tips his hat to Bresson, Ozu and Chaplin, wanting to tell a story about the things that may lead humanity to a future: longing for love, solidarity, hope, and respect for another human being, nature and anything living or dead." The movie is inspired by the song “Les feuilles mortes" (translates to "Dead Leaves”), composed by Joseph Kosma...
- 5/10/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
One of the great directors working today, Aki Kaurismäki, is returning with his first film since 2017’s The Other Side of Hope. Fallen Leaves, the latest work from the Finnish director, will premiere in competition at Cannes Film Festival this month and now The Match Factory has debuted the first trailer as sales kick off. Described as a “gentle tragicomedy,” it marks the fourth part of Kaurismäki’s working-class trilogy, following Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, and The Match Factory Girl.
Here’s the synopsis: “Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path towards this honorable goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s general tendency...
Here’s the synopsis: “Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path towards this honorable goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s general tendency...
- 5/10/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Sales agency The Match Factory is launching the trailer (below) of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in Competition.
This gentle tragicomedy is the fourth part of Kaurismäki’s working-class quartet, following “Shadows in Paradise,” “Ariel” and “The Match Factory Girl,” which The Match Factory, the company, is named after.
The film tells the story of two lonely people (played by Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night. They then try to re-find each other: the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path toward this goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking their happiness.
Ahead of the festival, The Match Factory has secured sales in...
This gentle tragicomedy is the fourth part of Kaurismäki’s working-class quartet, following “Shadows in Paradise,” “Ariel” and “The Match Factory Girl,” which The Match Factory, the company, is named after.
The film tells the story of two lonely people (played by Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night. They then try to re-find each other: the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path toward this goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking their happiness.
Ahead of the festival, The Match Factory has secured sales in...
- 5/10/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Finnish director’s latest secures sales to key territories in Europe and Asia.
Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves has secured sales in multiple territories through The Match Factory ahead of its world premiere in Cannes Competition this month.
The Match Factory has sold the gentle tragicomedy to: Diaphana for France, Eurospace for Japan, Lucky Red for Italy, September Film for the Benelux, A-One for the Baltics, McF for ex-Yugoslavia, Cinobo for Greece, Cirko for Hungary, Lev for Israel, Midas for Portugal, Folkets Bio for Sweden, Arthause for Norway and Filmcoopi for Switzerland. Pandora Film is releasing the film...
Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves has secured sales in multiple territories through The Match Factory ahead of its world premiere in Cannes Competition this month.
The Match Factory has sold the gentle tragicomedy to: Diaphana for France, Eurospace for Japan, Lucky Red for Italy, September Film for the Benelux, A-One for the Baltics, McF for ex-Yugoslavia, Cinobo for Greece, Cirko for Hungary, Lev for Israel, Midas for Portugal, Folkets Bio for Sweden, Arthause for Norway and Filmcoopi for Switzerland. Pandora Film is releasing the film...
- 5/10/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Ena Sendijarević's Take Me Somewhere Nice, which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from May 21 – June 20, 2019 in Mubi's Debuts series.“He’s the kind of person who thinks that nobody understands him, but I do,” the actor Ernad Prnjavorac responds when I ask him what to make of Emir, the character he’s playing. People have kept asking questions about him; they didn’t understand him when reading the script. I used Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment as an inspiration. Just like Raskolnikov, Emir is on a path of extremism and radicalization. I held on to the thought that probably the people commenting on Emir’s character wouldn’t understand Raskolnikov either. Luckily, my actor does. We are in the middle of shooting my debut feature film, Take Me Somewhere Nice. It’s end of summer and we are shooting in scorching hot Bosnia,...
- 5/17/2020
- MUBI
Aki Kaurismäki. Photo courtesy of Janus Films.Watching an Aki Kaurismäki film can feel like dropping in on a world just out of step with our own. All the elements are there—the streets, the buildings, the people (and their docile dogs). But something is always off. A man’s desk is taken away while he’s still sitting at it to indicate he’s been laid off. A woman asks a pharmacist what rat poison does. “It kills,” the pharmacist says blankly. It’s as if the Finnish filmmaker is recreating a version of planet Earth with all the nuance removed. These highly orchestrated facsimiles should feel foreign, but their simplicity and dry humor instead allows for a familiarity to sink in. His universe is in fact far more relatable—and far more human—than meets the eye. Although he’s gained a reputation as a comically cynical auteur,...
- 3/29/2019
- MUBI
Conventional wisdom suggests that 35mm film is going the way of the dodo, but Aki Kaurismäki has never been conventional. Long a favorite among arthouse audiences, the Finnish filmmaker has made an unsurprising — though not unwelcome — pledge: never to make a digital film.
“I will die with my boots on. I won’t make a digital film in this life,” he tells the Sydney Morning Herald in a wide-ranging interview. “Cinema is made from light. I am a filmmaker, not a pixel-maker.”
He doesn’t plan on making a movie about the wealthy anytime soon, either. “Of course, the working class is not such a sexy and commercial subject, I understand from the popcorn audience,”Kaurismäki continues. “But I couldn’t write dialogue for upper-class people because I wouldn’t know what they say. I don’t know if they talk at all. Maybe they are just shopping. And selling and buying stocks.
“I will die with my boots on. I won’t make a digital film in this life,” he tells the Sydney Morning Herald in a wide-ranging interview. “Cinema is made from light. I am a filmmaker, not a pixel-maker.”
He doesn’t plan on making a movie about the wealthy anytime soon, either. “Of course, the working class is not such a sexy and commercial subject, I understand from the popcorn audience,”Kaurismäki continues. “But I couldn’t write dialogue for upper-class people because I wouldn’t know what they say. I don’t know if they talk at all. Maybe they are just shopping. And selling and buying stocks.
- 3/25/2018
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
After Sundance Film Festival concludes in late January, the next big cinematic event on the globe is the Berlin International Film Festival. With Paul Verhoeven serving as jury president for the 67th edition of the festival, they’ve now announced their first line-up of titles, including Aki Kaurismäki‘s The Other Side of Hope (pictured above), Oren Moverman‘s Richard Gere-led The Dinner, Sally Potter‘s The Party (pictured below), and Agnieszka Holland‘s Spoor, as well as a restoration of a Rainer Werner Fassbinder TV show.
Check out the first titles below, and return for our coverage from the festival.
Competition
A teströl és a lélekröl (On Body and Soul)
Hungary
By Ildiko Enyedi (My 20th Century, Simon the Magician)
With Géza Morcsányi, Alexandra Borbély, Zoltán Schneider
World premiere
Ana, mon amour
Romania/Germany/France
By Călin Peter Netzer (Child‘s Pose, Maria)
With Mircea Postelnicu, Diana Cavallioti,...
Check out the first titles below, and return for our coverage from the festival.
Competition
A teströl és a lélekröl (On Body and Soul)
Hungary
By Ildiko Enyedi (My 20th Century, Simon the Magician)
With Géza Morcsányi, Alexandra Borbély, Zoltán Schneider
World premiere
Ana, mon amour
Romania/Germany/France
By Călin Peter Netzer (Child‘s Pose, Maria)
With Mircea Postelnicu, Diana Cavallioti,...
- 12/15/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Aki Kaurismäki, Oren Moverman, Agnieszka Holland, Sally Potter among competition lineup.
The first 14 films have been announced for the Competition and Berlinale Special sections of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.
Among directors with movies in competition are Aki Kaurismäki, Oren Moverman, Agnieszka Holland, Andres Veiel, Sebastián Lelio and Sally Potter.
Moverman’s (The Messenger) mystery-drama The Dinner stars Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Hall and Chloë Sevigny.
Fernando Trueba’s comedy-drama The Queen of Spain, starring Penelope Cruz, will get its international premiere in the Berlinale Special strand.
More to follow…
Competition
A teströl és a lélekröl (On Body and Soul) (Hungary)
By Ildiko Enyedi (My 20th Century, Simon the Magician)
With Géza Morcsányi, Alexandra Borbély, Zoltán Schneider
World premiere
Ana, mon amour (Romania / Germany / France)
By Călin Peter Netzer (Child‘s Pose, Maria)
With Mircea Postelnicu, Diana Cavallioti, Carmen Tănase, Adrian Titieni, Vlad Ivanov
World premiere
Beuys - Documentary (Germany)
By Andres Veiel ([link...
The first 14 films have been announced for the Competition and Berlinale Special sections of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.
Among directors with movies in competition are Aki Kaurismäki, Oren Moverman, Agnieszka Holland, Andres Veiel, Sebastián Lelio and Sally Potter.
Moverman’s (The Messenger) mystery-drama The Dinner stars Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Hall and Chloë Sevigny.
Fernando Trueba’s comedy-drama The Queen of Spain, starring Penelope Cruz, will get its international premiere in the Berlinale Special strand.
More to follow…
Competition
A teströl és a lélekröl (On Body and Soul) (Hungary)
By Ildiko Enyedi (My 20th Century, Simon the Magician)
With Géza Morcsányi, Alexandra Borbély, Zoltán Schneider
World premiere
Ana, mon amour (Romania / Germany / France)
By Călin Peter Netzer (Child‘s Pose, Maria)
With Mircea Postelnicu, Diana Cavallioti, Carmen Tănase, Adrian Titieni, Vlad Ivanov
World premiere
Beuys - Documentary (Germany)
By Andres Veiel ([link...
- 12/15/2016
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
The best-known films of director Lenny Abrahamson, Frank and the quadruple Oscar-nominee Room, follow sad, and in some cases, broken souls as they search and fight for even the tiniest glimpse of happiness. Frank follows a band with an intentionally unpronounceable name, whose lead singer (Michael Fassbender) always wears a fake plastic head, concealing his scarred face from the world. In Room, a mother (Brie Larson) and her young son (Jacob Tremblay) survive a tragic fate, held prisoner in a single room for years on end.
The two films share an acute sensitivity to the lives of characters who struggle to make the best of the often brutal fates with which they’ve been burdened. Abrahamson listed the following ten films as his favorite in 2012’s Sight and Sound poll, a brilliant mixture of stories which as he laments in his quote, could have contained far more than a mere ten selections.
The two films share an acute sensitivity to the lives of characters who struggle to make the best of the often brutal fates with which they’ve been burdened. Abrahamson listed the following ten films as his favorite in 2012’s Sight and Sound poll, a brilliant mixture of stories which as he laments in his quote, could have contained far more than a mere ten selections.
- 2/3/2016
- by Tony Hinds
- The Film Stage
The films of Aki Kaurismäki tend to focus on outsiders, those on the fringes of mainstream society, though any politics have been suggested rather than explicitly stated. However, for his next feature, the title alone won't make any mistake about what it's about. The director behind "The Man Without A Past," "The Match Factory Girl," and "Drifting Clouds," among others, will next get behind the camera for "Refugee." It's a working title for now, but it will mark second chapter in the filmmaker's "port city trilogy," following 2011's lovely and hilarious "Le Havre." And the picture will draw on the current refugee crisis for inspiration. Read More: New Films From James Franco, Paul Verhoeven, And Aki Kaurismäki Added To Rome Film Festival “The situation in Tornio – a border town in north-eastern Finland – roused something in me. I developed the project just last week,” the director told TV-Maailma...
- 12/4/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Hunger Games DoP Tom Stern and 12 Years a Slave cinematographer Sean Bobbitt among those chosen for jury duty.
The 21st Camerimage, the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography (Nov 16-23), has revealed the competition jurors who will judge entries at this year’s event in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Jury members of the main competition jury are:
Tom Stern, cinematographer (Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, The Hunger Games);Ed Lachman, cinematographer (Erin Brockovich, The Virgin Suicides, I’m Not There);Todd McCarthy, journalist and film critic;Denis Lenoir, cinematographer (Paris, je t’aime, Righteous Kill, 88 Minutes);Adam Holender, cinematographer (Midnight Cowboy, Smoke, Fresh);Timo Salminen, cinematographer (The Man Without a Past, La Havre, The Match Factory Girl);Franz Lustig, cinematographer (Don’t Come Knocking, Land of Plenty, Palermo Shooting);Jeffrey Kimball, cinematographer (Top Gun, Mission: Impossible II, The Expendables).Polish Films Competition
Jost Vacano, the cinematographer behind several Paul Verhoeven films including Total Recall, RoboCop and [link...
The 21st Camerimage, the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography (Nov 16-23), has revealed the competition jurors who will judge entries at this year’s event in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Jury members of the main competition jury are:
Tom Stern, cinematographer (Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, The Hunger Games);Ed Lachman, cinematographer (Erin Brockovich, The Virgin Suicides, I’m Not There);Todd McCarthy, journalist and film critic;Denis Lenoir, cinematographer (Paris, je t’aime, Righteous Kill, 88 Minutes);Adam Holender, cinematographer (Midnight Cowboy, Smoke, Fresh);Timo Salminen, cinematographer (The Man Without a Past, La Havre, The Match Factory Girl);Franz Lustig, cinematographer (Don’t Come Knocking, Land of Plenty, Palermo Shooting);Jeffrey Kimball, cinematographer (Top Gun, Mission: Impossible II, The Expendables).Polish Films Competition
Jost Vacano, the cinematographer behind several Paul Verhoeven films including Total Recall, RoboCop and [link...
- 11/8/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The Paris-based Pyramide co-founder, producer and distributor worked closely with Aki Kaurismaki, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Catherine Corsini, among others.
Veteran distributor and producer Fabienne Vonier, who co-founded Paris-based distribution and production company Pyramide, has died after a long illness. She was 66.
“Fabienne was passionate about film,” said long-term collaborator Eric Lagesse, who took over Pyramide’s distribution and international sales activities in 2008. “She was someone who was constantly on the look-out for interesting productions, directors.”
Lagesse continued: “She had done it all: exhibition, distribution and lastly production. She did everything to the full and was as demanding of herself as she was of everyone else. She was a true professional, working right up until the end.”
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Vonier supported the work of scores of directors from across the world including Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki, Canadian Denys Arcand, Mexico’s Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Palestinian Elia Suleiman, Egyptian [link=nm...
Veteran distributor and producer Fabienne Vonier, who co-founded Paris-based distribution and production company Pyramide, has died after a long illness. She was 66.
“Fabienne was passionate about film,” said long-term collaborator Eric Lagesse, who took over Pyramide’s distribution and international sales activities in 2008. “She was someone who was constantly on the look-out for interesting productions, directors.”
Lagesse continued: “She had done it all: exhibition, distribution and lastly production. She did everything to the full and was as demanding of herself as she was of everyone else. She was a true professional, working right up until the end.”
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Vonier supported the work of scores of directors from across the world including Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki, Canadian Denys Arcand, Mexico’s Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Palestinian Elia Suleiman, Egyptian [link=nm...
- 7/30/2013
- ScreenDaily
The Paris-based Pyramide co-founder, producer and distributor worked closely with AKi Kaurismaki, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Catherine Corsini, among others.
Veteran distributor and producer Fabienne Vonier, who co-founded Paris-based distribution and production company Pyramide, has died after a long illness. She was 66.
“Fabienne was passionate about film,” said long-term collaborator Eric Lagesse, who took over Pyramide’s distribution and international sales activities in 2008. “She was someone who was constantly on the look-out for interesting productions, directors.”
Lagesse continued: “She had done it all: exhibition, distribution and lastly production. She did everything to the full and was as demanding of herself as she was of everyone else. She was a true professional, working right up until the end.”
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Vonier supported the work of scores of directors from across the world including Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki, Canadian Denys Arcand, Mexico’s Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Palestinian Elia Suleiman, Egyptian [link=nm...
Veteran distributor and producer Fabienne Vonier, who co-founded Paris-based distribution and production company Pyramide, has died after a long illness. She was 66.
“Fabienne was passionate about film,” said long-term collaborator Eric Lagesse, who took over Pyramide’s distribution and international sales activities in 2008. “She was someone who was constantly on the look-out for interesting productions, directors.”
Lagesse continued: “She had done it all: exhibition, distribution and lastly production. She did everything to the full and was as demanding of herself as she was of everyone else. She was a true professional, working right up until the end.”
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Vonier supported the work of scores of directors from across the world including Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki, Canadian Denys Arcand, Mexico’s Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Palestinian Elia Suleiman, Egyptian [link=nm...
- 7/30/2013
- ScreenDaily
I've mentioned before how several years ago I created a list using Roger Ebert's Great Movies, Oscar Best Picture winners, IMDb's Top 250, etc. and began going through them doing my best to see as many of the films on these lists that I had not seen as I possibly could to up my film I.Q. Well, someone has gone through the exhaustive effort to take all of the films Roger Ebert wrote about in his three "Great Movies" books, all of which are compiled on his website and added them to a Letterbxd list and I've added that list below. I'm not positive every movie on his list is here, but by my count there are 363 different titles listed (more if you count the trilogies, the Up docs and Decalogue) and of those 363, I have personally seen 229 and have added an * next to those I've seen. Clearly I have some work to do,...
- 4/10/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
I've mentioned before how several years ago I created a list using Roger Ebert's Great Movies, Oscar Best Picture winners, IMDb's Top 250, etc. and began going through them doing my best to see as many of the films on these lists that I had not seen as I possibly could to up my film I.Q. Well, someone has gone through the exhaustive effort to take all of the films Roger Ebert wrote about in his three "Great Movies" books, all of which are compiled on his website and added them to a Letterbxd list and I've added that list below. I'm not positive every movie on his list is here, but by my count there are 362 different titles listed (more if you count the trilogies and Decalogue) and of those 362, I have personally seen 229 and have added an * next to those I've seen. Clearly I have some work to do,...
- 4/10/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Chicago – It takes a French village in the sweet, optimistic, good-natured “Le Havre,” a film about a kind man who does something to help another and how the community doesn’t just rally around him but the world produces a miracle for him in the end. It is such a kind-hearted film that suggests without cynicism that doing good not only will bring more good but will essentially be supported by the world around you. Incredibly well-made and memorable, “Le Havre” is a stellar modern addition to The Criterion Collection.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Aki Kaurismaki takes his unique eye to the title city in the North of France for this tale of an immigrant boy who is first protected by a kind gentleman and then essentially guarded by the entire community. Sweet, surprising, smart, and very subtle, “Le Havre” is a gentle film that builds its story through character, setting, and humanity...
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Aki Kaurismaki takes his unique eye to the title city in the North of France for this tale of an immigrant boy who is first protected by a kind gentleman and then essentially guarded by the entire community. Sweet, surprising, smart, and very subtle, “Le Havre” is a gentle film that builds its story through character, setting, and humanity...
- 8/6/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
He thinks his own films are dreadful, Scorsese's worse, and despairs of mankind in general. Director Aki Kaurismäki on why only love, mushrooms and drinking on set keep him going
Aki Kaurismäki sits in his heavy black coat, grimacing. The miserabilist's miserabilist is looking more miserable than it is possible to imagine. I have been told it is best to interview him first thing in the morning, because he starts to drink after that. It is now four in the afternoon, and he seems to have been glugging back the white wine for a good few hours.
He is waiting for a member of staff at Soho House in London to tell him to put out his fag, and he is not disappointed. "I'm sorry, sir, we have told you, you can't smoke in here." Kaurismäki looks surprised, as if this is the first he's heard of it, apologises and...
Aki Kaurismäki sits in his heavy black coat, grimacing. The miserabilist's miserabilist is looking more miserable than it is possible to imagine. I have been told it is best to interview him first thing in the morning, because he starts to drink after that. It is now four in the afternoon, and he seems to have been glugging back the white wine for a good few hours.
He is waiting for a member of staff at Soho House in London to tell him to put out his fag, and he is not disappointed. "I'm sorry, sir, we have told you, you can't smoke in here." Kaurismäki looks surprised, as if this is the first he's heard of it, apologises and...
- 4/5/2012
- by Simon Hattenstone
- The Guardian - Film News
The director and writer has learned from the greats – and with his latest, Le Havre, he proves that he's earned his place among them, says John Patterson
With Aki Kaurismäki's movies, as with Yasujirô Ozu's, familiarity breeds contentment. Taken cumulatively, they extol and embody the pleasures of repetition – the comforts of familiarity – without ever seeming repetitious or familiar themselves, even though Kaurismäki basically tells the same stories over and over again.
Returning to the Finn's work after 20 years of not seeing it (he was poorly distributed here in the Us for much of that time), my first impression was of an old, reliable and rewarding vibe-cum-sensibility still chugging along productively, the work perhaps wiser and kinder now, always evolving in tiny ways here and there, but always offering the same combination of deadpan fatalism (1988's Ariel has the funniest suicide in the history of cinema) amid a rigorously...
With Aki Kaurismäki's movies, as with Yasujirô Ozu's, familiarity breeds contentment. Taken cumulatively, they extol and embody the pleasures of repetition – the comforts of familiarity – without ever seeming repetitious or familiar themselves, even though Kaurismäki basically tells the same stories over and over again.
Returning to the Finn's work after 20 years of not seeing it (he was poorly distributed here in the Us for much of that time), my first impression was of an old, reliable and rewarding vibe-cum-sensibility still chugging along productively, the work perhaps wiser and kinder now, always evolving in tiny ways here and there, but always offering the same combination of deadpan fatalism (1988's Ariel has the funniest suicide in the history of cinema) amid a rigorously...
- 3/30/2012
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
From April 6, Cannes favourite Le Havre will be in cinemas. But for those who might prefer (and live in the UK or Ireland), you can stream it here via Curzon on Demand. Either way, be sure to tune in for our Q&A with top evolutionary theorist Mark Pagel next Friday night
Cannes 2011, on reflection, looks an absolutely vintage year. Not only did it introduce us to The Artist and Melancholia, The Tree of Life and Take Shelter, it also gave us The Skin I Live In, Footnote, Drive, The Kid on the Bike and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.
And now we're approaching the release one of the films which Peter Bradshaw wrote about most warmly last May: Le Havre.
Reviewing the latest from Aki Kaurismäki – the deadpan Finnish film-maker behind I Hired A Contract Killer, The Match Factory Girl, Leningrad Cowboys Go America and The Man Without...
Cannes 2011, on reflection, looks an absolutely vintage year. Not only did it introduce us to The Artist and Melancholia, The Tree of Life and Take Shelter, it also gave us The Skin I Live In, Footnote, Drive, The Kid on the Bike and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.
And now we're approaching the release one of the films which Peter Bradshaw wrote about most warmly last May: Le Havre.
Reviewing the latest from Aki Kaurismäki – the deadpan Finnish film-maker behind I Hired A Contract Killer, The Match Factory Girl, Leningrad Cowboys Go America and The Man Without...
- 3/29/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has largely been making variations on the same movie for more than three decades. (With some exceptions: most notably, 1990’s The Match Factory Girl, an utterly chilling, Medea-like story of revenge, and not coincidentally, one of his strongest effects by far.) His usual work features loveable, lovelorn underclass characters, shaggy-dog romanticism, an eclectic soundtrack, mild-to-frisky political overtones, crazy hairdos, and so on. Several great auteurs, Yasujiro Ozu among them, have reworked the same themes with the same principal cast members, and the little differences between a creator’s films can be profound—as can ...
- 10/20/2011
- avclub.com
In The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, published in 2003, critic and film historian David Thomson ends his favorable entry on Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki by noting that the Helsinki-based auteur might gain some edge if “his sardonic eye turned to politics.” It’s hard to imagine what a political film by Kaurismäki might look like, given how masterfully he has balanced deadpan humor and dour heartbreak in his wry tales of social estrangement among the working classes; films like The Match Factory Girl and Ariel feel more like poetic, strangely poignant chamber works. But now, at least in spirit, we have one. Kaurismäki’s latest comic fable, Le Havre, which won the Fipresci prize at Cannes in May and is Finland’s official Oscar entry, channels some of Europe’s not-so-welcoming attitudes toward newly arrived immigrants and transforms the conflict into an amiably humanistic fairy tale resonating with goodwill.
Septuagenarian...
Septuagenarian...
- 10/19/2011
- by Damon Smith
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
A memorial service for Kino International's former president Donald Krim will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 27, between 10 a.m.-12 noon, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater in New York City. The former President of DVD and film distributor Kino International, Krim later became co-President of the recently formed Kino-Lorber. He died last May 20 at his New York home following a year-long battle with cancer. He was 65. During Donald Krim's tenure, among Kino's Us releases were films by Wong Kar Wai (Happy Together; Fallen Angels), Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher), Amos Gitai (Kippur; Kadosh), Aki Kaurismäki (The Match Factory Girl; Ariel), Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth), Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), and Andrei Zvyagintsev (The Return). Kino also distributed independent American productions (e.g., Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy), and both Hollywood and international classics, including numerous silent films, e.g., Fritz Lang's Metropolis,...
- 9/18/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Though he hasn’t quite risen to “blaring headlines” level, Aki Kaurismaki’s name has been generating something louder than a low rumble in terms of buzz over the past few weeks. As our intrepid news reporter Josh Brunsting noted recently, the Finnish auteur’s newest film Le Havre, fresh off its debut at Cannes, was picked up by Janus Films for Us distribution a short while ago. And Criterion announced last month that Kaurismaki’s Leningrad Cowboys films are slated for an October release as the latest addition to the Eclipse Series – a development that caught me and many others by surprise, but one of the most enjoyable sort. Given all that Kaursimaki zeitgeist, it seems only natural for me to wind up my coverage of Eclipse Series 12: Aki Kaurismaki’s Proletariat Trilogy with my third review from the set, The Match Factory Girl. (Here are the links to the first two,...
- 8/8/2011
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Release Date: Oct. 18, 2011
Price: DVD $44.95
Studio: Criterion
The Leningrad Cowboys prepare for another hair-raising show.
Criterion‘s Eclipse Series 29 features the inimitable work of Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki (The Match Factory Girl), the master of the deadpan comedy, and his weirdest creation: the band Leningrad Cowboys, billed by their inventor as “the worst rock-and-roll band in the world.”
A bizarre posse of fur-coated, outrageously pompadoured Siberian hipsters, the band struck a chord with international audiences via their debut star turn in the 1989 Kaurismäki film Leningrad Cowboys Go America. The fictional band was so popular that it became a genuine attraction, touring the world and appearing in a handful of subsequent Kaurismäki movies.
This Eclipse series presents these crackpot musical and comic odysseys, all Finnish films, along with five Leningrad Cowboys music videos directed by Kaurismäki.
Here’s what’s included in the DVD:
Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989)
The struggling Siberian...
Price: DVD $44.95
Studio: Criterion
The Leningrad Cowboys prepare for another hair-raising show.
Criterion‘s Eclipse Series 29 features the inimitable work of Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki (The Match Factory Girl), the master of the deadpan comedy, and his weirdest creation: the band Leningrad Cowboys, billed by their inventor as “the worst rock-and-roll band in the world.”
A bizarre posse of fur-coated, outrageously pompadoured Siberian hipsters, the band struck a chord with international audiences via their debut star turn in the 1989 Kaurismäki film Leningrad Cowboys Go America. The fictional band was so popular that it became a genuine attraction, touring the world and appearing in a handful of subsequent Kaurismäki movies.
This Eclipse series presents these crackpot musical and comic odysseys, all Finnish films, along with five Leningrad Cowboys music videos directed by Kaurismäki.
Here’s what’s included in the DVD:
Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989)
The struggling Siberian...
- 8/5/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Sad news today: the passing of veteran independent distributor, Kino’s Donald Krim, who has been responsible for the U.S. release of many of the best films ever made. Throughout his long career, he handpicked excellent world cinema titles as well as the best of the American independents, creating one of the most enviable libraries around. Remarkably, Krim’s taste remained on the cutting edge even in his later years — witness last year’s release of the extraordinary Dogtooth. He will be missed.
Below is the press release we received from Kino.
May 20, 2011 – Donald B. Krim (b. October 5, 1945), the President of Kino International and co-President of Kino Lorber Inc., one of the most prestigious independent film distribution companies in the United States, died at his New York home on May 20, 2011, after a one-year battle with cancer. He was 65. A funeral service is planned for Monday, May 23 (11:45Am) at Riverside Memorial Chapel,...
Below is the press release we received from Kino.
May 20, 2011 – Donald B. Krim (b. October 5, 1945), the President of Kino International and co-President of Kino Lorber Inc., one of the most prestigious independent film distribution companies in the United States, died at his New York home on May 20, 2011, after a one-year battle with cancer. He was 65. A funeral service is planned for Monday, May 23 (11:45Am) at Riverside Memorial Chapel,...
- 5/21/2011
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Kino International president and Kino Lorber co-president Donald Krim died May 20 at his New York home after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 65. Among the directors Krim brought to American audiences were Wong Kar-Wai ("Happy Together"), Michael Haneke ("The Piano Teacher"), Amos Gitai ("Kadosh"), Aki Kaurismäki ("The Match Factory Girl"), Julie Dash ("Daughters of the Dust") and Andrei Zvyagintsev ("The Return"). After receiving undergraduate and law degrees ...
- 5/21/2011
- Indiewire
Donald B. Krim, who was head of one of the most prestigious independent film distribution companies in the United States, died at his New York home today after a one-year battle with cancer. He was 65. According to his official bio, Krim, as the president of Kino International, helped introduce some of the world's most revered film directors to U.S. audiences, among them Wong Kar-Wai (Happy Together, Fallen Angels); Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher); Amos Gitai (Kippur, Kadosh); Aki Kaurismäki (The Match Factory Girl, Ariel); Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust); and Andrei Zvyagintsev (The Return). After law school, Krim began his career at United Artists, first becoming head of the 16mm non-theatrical film rental division, then working on the formation of United Artists Classics, the first major studio-owned art house division and the model for today's Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics. Eventually, UA Classics also began to handle...
- 5/21/2011
- by NIKKI FINKE
- Deadline Hollywood
Now, in the final lap of the Cannes Film Festival, is the time when we critics begin comparing notes and conjecturing meaninglessly on possible prize winners. (Analyze this: What will jury president Robert De Niro like? And have Lars von Trier’s thoughtless comments, reported at face value by disingenuous journalists with no time for context, ruined the chances for von Trier’s great movie Melancholia?) Meanwhile, as we shmooze and quantify, here’s a quiet headline: There’s not a critic I know, including me, who doesn’t put Le Havre, by the sometimes imitated but essentially inimitable Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki,...
- 5/19/2011
- by Lisa Schwarzbaum
- EW - Inside Movies
When it comes to ranking my favorite months of the year, there are none that I enjoy bidding good riddance to more than February. Sure, it’s a short month that signifies events I look forward to, but February’s passing means that better times (i.e. the end of winter) is soon on its way. But early March typically doesn’t offer much to confirm my impression (maybe more like wishful thinking) that spring is in the air, and this weekend here at my home in West Michigan very much fit that pattern as a slab of dull grey mediocrity hung low overhead, drizzling a sullen slushy mix of rain and snow that’s been giving my basement sump pump a pretty thorough workout over the past several days. Such mundane, pedestrian observations of my personal life may seem irrelevant to a movie review, but the conditions I described...
- 3/7/2011
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
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