"Kale has a very sad story." Janus Films has launched a brand new Us trailer for the upcoming stateside release of Aki Kaurismäki's latest indie gem film, the highly acclaimed The Other Side of Hope. Set in Helsinki, Finland, this film tells the story of two struggling men whose lives intersect in the middle of the city. One story follows a young refugee from Syria who sneaks into Helsinki, the other follows a traveling salesman who buys a small, unprofitable restaurant. The ensemble cast features Sherwan Haji, Sakari Kuosmanen, Janne Hyytiäinen, Ilkka Koivula, Nuppu Koivu, Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon, and Niroz Haji. This has played at festivals all over the world, and is regarded as one of the best international films this year. It's quite a quirky, funky trailer that really captures how unique and intelligent this film is. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Aki Kaurismäki's The Other Side of Hope,...
- 11/14/2017
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
In a season filled with expensive, noisy blockbusters and over eager Oscar contenders, a new film by the singular, wonderful Aki Kaurismaki is a soothing balm. “The Other Side Of Hope” is coming soon, and it looks like it’ll be a delightfully different treat from the cinematic treadmill.
Sherwan Haji, Sakari Kuosmanen, Janne Hyytiäinen, Nuppu Koivu, Ilkka Koivula, Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon, Kaija Pakarinen, Kati Outinen, Tommi Korpela and Tuomari Nurmio, star in the award winning movie about a Syrian refugee who crosses paths with a restaurant owner in Helsinski, with the typically comical and surreal results we expect from Kaurismaki.
Continue reading ‘The Other Side Of Hope’ Trailer: Aki Kaurismaki Takes On The Refugee Crisis at The Playlist.
Sherwan Haji, Sakari Kuosmanen, Janne Hyytiäinen, Nuppu Koivu, Ilkka Koivula, Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon, Kaija Pakarinen, Kati Outinen, Tommi Korpela and Tuomari Nurmio, star in the award winning movie about a Syrian refugee who crosses paths with a restaurant owner in Helsinski, with the typically comical and surreal results we expect from Kaurismaki.
Continue reading ‘The Other Side Of Hope’ Trailer: Aki Kaurismaki Takes On The Refugee Crisis at The Playlist.
- 11/14/2017
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
"I want to stay here. This is a country with no war." The Match Factory has debuted a new international trailer for Aki Kaurismäki's latest film, The Other Side of Hope, which first premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. Set in Helsinki, Finland, this film tells the story of two struggling men whose lives intersect in the middle of the city. One story follows a young refugee from Syria who sneaks into Helsinki, the other follows a traveling salesman who buys a small unprofitable restaurant. The cast features Sherwan Haji, Sakari Kuosmanen, Janne Hyytiäinen, Ilkka Koivula, Nuppu Koivu, Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon, and Niroz Haji. If you're familiar with Kaurismäki's films already, then you should know what to expect. This one is a bit more dry and depressing than some of his other films, but it's still worth your time. Here's the new international trailer (+ poster) for...
- 8/1/2017
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Like Roger Federer’s forehand or Jiro Ono’s sushi, Aki Kaurismäki’s deadpan is one of those beautiful things that’s been refined beyond all reason over years of intense practice, eventually approaching a perfection that makes it easy to predict but impossible to deny.
Consider one early bit of business in the Finnish filmmaker’s latest fable, a wordless sequence in which a middle-aged man named Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen) leaves his wife (Kaija Pakarinen). It’s the dead of night. The man is wearing a suit and looking at his reflection in the bedroom mirror; his wife is pouring herself a drink at the tiny table in the corner of their kitchen. A fat cactus sits next to her booze. Wikström saunters over, places his wedding band and apartment keys on the table, and walks out the door. His wife lights another cigarette, picks up the ring, and stubs it into the ashtray.
Consider one early bit of business in the Finnish filmmaker’s latest fable, a wordless sequence in which a middle-aged man named Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen) leaves his wife (Kaija Pakarinen). It’s the dead of night. The man is wearing a suit and looking at his reflection in the bedroom mirror; his wife is pouring herself a drink at the tiny table in the corner of their kitchen. A fat cactus sits next to her booze. Wikström saunters over, places his wedding band and apartment keys on the table, and walks out the door. His wife lights another cigarette, picks up the ring, and stubs it into the ashtray.
- 2/14/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
First image released from new film about Finnish travelling salesman who meets a Syrian refugee.
Aki Kaurismaki’s new film The Other Side Of Hope (Toivon Tuolla Puolen) has confirmed its Finnish release date of Feb 3. The Match Factory handles international sales.
The 98-minute film, shot in the early autumn in Helsinki, tells the story of a Finnish travelling salesman crossing paths with a Syrian refugee.
The Other Side Of Hope is the second instalment in Kaurismäki’s trilogy focusing on port cities, which began with Le Havre.
The lead actors are Sherwan Haji as Syrian refugee Khaled, and Sakari Kuosmanen as Wikström the salesman.
The cast also includes Janne Hyytiäinen, Nuppu Koivu and Ilkka Koivula as personnel of the “Kultainen tuoppi” restaurant owned by Wikström, and Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon playing Iraqi asylum seeker Mazdak. Other cast includes Kaija Pakarinen, Kati Outinen, Tommi Korpela and Tuomari Nurmio.
Key crew includes DoP Timo Salminen, costume designer...
Aki Kaurismaki’s new film The Other Side Of Hope (Toivon Tuolla Puolen) has confirmed its Finnish release date of Feb 3. The Match Factory handles international sales.
The 98-minute film, shot in the early autumn in Helsinki, tells the story of a Finnish travelling salesman crossing paths with a Syrian refugee.
The Other Side Of Hope is the second instalment in Kaurismäki’s trilogy focusing on port cities, which began with Le Havre.
The lead actors are Sherwan Haji as Syrian refugee Khaled, and Sakari Kuosmanen as Wikström the salesman.
The cast also includes Janne Hyytiäinen, Nuppu Koivu and Ilkka Koivula as personnel of the “Kultainen tuoppi” restaurant owned by Wikström, and Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon playing Iraqi asylum seeker Mazdak. Other cast includes Kaija Pakarinen, Kati Outinen, Tommi Korpela and Tuomari Nurmio.
Key crew includes DoP Timo Salminen, costume designer...
- 12/8/2016
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
The northern Portugal town of Guimarães might not seem as fitting a subject for a portmanteau film tribute as its more metropolitan brethren (Paris, je t'aime; New York, I Love You; Tokyo!), but what better way to showcase last year's European Capital of Culture than with a rich, artful quartet of shorts mirroring the diverse idiosyncrasies of four significant auteurs. Predictably deadpan, Finland's Aki Kaurismäki offers a witty, wordless day in the life of a lowly "Tavern Man," starring Ilkka Koivula as a big dreamer with little café-biz savvy. Aggressively formal and likely to alienate anyone without sufficient knowledge of the country's 1974 revolution, Pedro Costa's "Sweet Exorcism" is a sociopolitical ghost story, of sorts, as ...
- 7/19/2013
- Village Voice
#32. Le Havre Director/Screenwriter: Aki Kaurismäki Producers: Haije TulokasDistributor: Rights Available. The Gist: This is about a boot polisher who tries to save a refugee.....(more) Cast: André Wilms, Kati Outinen, Elina Salo and Ilkka Koivula List Worthy Reasons...: With only a pair of films made in the past decade with The Man Without a Past (2002) and Lights in the Dusk (2006), we are itching for Kaurismaki's brand of dramatic comedy. Release Date/Status?: The film might receive a headstart in the filmmaker's native Finland, but Aki Kaurismäki is among Cannes' favorites so I'm expecting its international preem to take place at the fest especially since it was filmed in France and is in the French language. Fest circuit showings to follow in the autumn. ...
- 1/14/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
On the world cinema front, we have a new film from Aki Kaurismäki (filming in the North of France), we have Lou Ye joining forces with Tahar Rahim, and another auteur in Phillippe Garrel who will be directing Monica Bellucci. - At the beginning of every month, Ioncinema.com's "Tracking Shot" features a half dozen or so projects that are moments away from lensing and that we feel are worth signaling out. This March, we've got a good grouping - apart from Fox Searchlight's wild card film from Danny Boyle, most of these films will be 2011 releases. On the world cinema front, we have a new film from Aki Kaurismäki (filming in the North of France), we have Lou Ye joining forces with Tahar Rahim, and another auteur in Phillippe Garrel who will be directing Monica Bellucci. In the indie production world, Killer Films will be commencing production...
- 3/1/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
CANNES -- Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki is known for his wry, deadpan humor, off-center characters and absurdist tone. In Lights in the Dusk, the concluding film of his "loser trilogy" -- following Drifting Clouds and The Man Without a Past -- he has challenged himself and viewers anew. A lonely man's downward spiral of travails, for which he is blameless, is stripped to a minimalist emotional core: There are only a handful of locations and sets, few characters and even less extras. Plot mechanics are as rudimentary as a 1930s Hollywood backlot programmer. Characters are obvious, lacking in duplicity even when they aim to deceive.
Alas, Kaurismaki, who wrote, produced, directed and edited the film, also has stripped away any sense of purpose. Not that viewers won't "get" the film by the final scene; indeed those viewers got it by, perhaps, the third or fourth scene. Lights will put in more appearances at festivals before achieving a brief theatrical window for Kaurismaki devotees to gaze through. Most will do so with discouragement.
Kaurismaki compares his protagonist Koistinen, played with brave rectitude by Janne Hyytiainen, to Chaplin's Little Tramp. But the Little Tramp could be a cunning devil, never completely lacking in resources. Koistinen is nearly inert, letting evil events sweep him up without offering any resistance.
Koistinen is lonely. Every image screams this fact to you. His job as a security guard leaves him by himself for much of his work. He lives alone in a crummy flat, suffers ridicule with stoic forbearance and can't connect with anyone save for an empathetic mobile grill-stand lady, Aila (Maria Heiskanen), from whom he buys sodas and frankfurters.
A clumsy attempt to strike up a conversation in a bar with pretty blonde, Mirja (Maria Jarvenhelmi), gets her older "businessman" boyfriend (Ilkka Koivula) to thinking: Here is the perfect patsy to help him rob the shopping galleria Koistinen patrols. Mirja will be the lure to which he tumbles without a moment's thought.
With distressing ease, Mirja entices him to his doom, a couple of dates being all it takes for the crooks to rob the place and pin the blame on the guard. He even allows Mirja to plant evidence on him, leading to a prison sentence, since his sense of morality won't allow him to betray "his" girl. Don't you just want to kick the guy?
Scattered applause at the end of a Palais screening indicates some will indeed respond to this minimalist tale. But where Man Without a Past had deep reservoirs of feeling and an uncanny sense of humor, Lights just lays there, an object of puzzlement.
Timo Salminen's crisp, unblinking cinematography and the measured rhythms of Kaurismaki's own editing make the 78-minute Lights resemble a short story impressively told but essentially punchless in its emotional impact. The film's soundtrack is enlivened with songs by Finnish guitarist-songwriter Antero Jakoila, tango masters Ensemble Mastango and Carlos Gardel.
LIGHTS IN THE DUSK
Sputnik Oy/Pandora Films/Pyramide Prods.
Credits: Writer-director-producer-editor: Aki Kaurismaki; Director of photography: Timo Salminen; Production designer: Markku Patila; Costumes: Outi Harjupatana. Cast: Koistinen: Janne Hyytiainen; Mirja: Maria Jarvenhelmi; Aila: Maria Heiskanen; Lindholm: Ilkka Koivula.
No MPAA rating, running time 78 minutes.
Alas, Kaurismaki, who wrote, produced, directed and edited the film, also has stripped away any sense of purpose. Not that viewers won't "get" the film by the final scene; indeed those viewers got it by, perhaps, the third or fourth scene. Lights will put in more appearances at festivals before achieving a brief theatrical window for Kaurismaki devotees to gaze through. Most will do so with discouragement.
Kaurismaki compares his protagonist Koistinen, played with brave rectitude by Janne Hyytiainen, to Chaplin's Little Tramp. But the Little Tramp could be a cunning devil, never completely lacking in resources. Koistinen is nearly inert, letting evil events sweep him up without offering any resistance.
Koistinen is lonely. Every image screams this fact to you. His job as a security guard leaves him by himself for much of his work. He lives alone in a crummy flat, suffers ridicule with stoic forbearance and can't connect with anyone save for an empathetic mobile grill-stand lady, Aila (Maria Heiskanen), from whom he buys sodas and frankfurters.
A clumsy attempt to strike up a conversation in a bar with pretty blonde, Mirja (Maria Jarvenhelmi), gets her older "businessman" boyfriend (Ilkka Koivula) to thinking: Here is the perfect patsy to help him rob the shopping galleria Koistinen patrols. Mirja will be the lure to which he tumbles without a moment's thought.
With distressing ease, Mirja entices him to his doom, a couple of dates being all it takes for the crooks to rob the place and pin the blame on the guard. He even allows Mirja to plant evidence on him, leading to a prison sentence, since his sense of morality won't allow him to betray "his" girl. Don't you just want to kick the guy?
Scattered applause at the end of a Palais screening indicates some will indeed respond to this minimalist tale. But where Man Without a Past had deep reservoirs of feeling and an uncanny sense of humor, Lights just lays there, an object of puzzlement.
Timo Salminen's crisp, unblinking cinematography and the measured rhythms of Kaurismaki's own editing make the 78-minute Lights resemble a short story impressively told but essentially punchless in its emotional impact. The film's soundtrack is enlivened with songs by Finnish guitarist-songwriter Antero Jakoila, tango masters Ensemble Mastango and Carlos Gardel.
LIGHTS IN THE DUSK
Sputnik Oy/Pandora Films/Pyramide Prods.
Credits: Writer-director-producer-editor: Aki Kaurismaki; Director of photography: Timo Salminen; Production designer: Markku Patila; Costumes: Outi Harjupatana. Cast: Koistinen: Janne Hyytiainen; Mirja: Maria Jarvenhelmi; Aila: Maria Heiskanen; Lindholm: Ilkka Koivula.
No MPAA rating, running time 78 minutes.
- 5/23/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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