Aki Kaurismäki Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

The Match Factory has acquired international sales rights to Cinema Laika, a documentary feature about Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki and his process of building a personal movie theater in Karkkila, Finland.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Running April 4-7, the IFF Panama brings to this year’s edition a rich mix of standout director driven titles from Europe, the Spanish-speaking world and beyond, spangled by highlights from Central America, including Panama: “Bila Burba,” (Duiren Wagua, Panama) Documentary. Wagua’s debut feature. The Gunadule nation’s ties with the Panamanian government were fraught with territorial and cultural disputes.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Argentina’s newly elected president Javier Milei is bent on keeping his chainsaw-wielding campaign promise to cut state spending, including scrapping the country’s national film institute (INCAA) and its film schools (ENERC). His mega draft bill, aimed at reining in Argentina’s hyper-inflation, has prompted more than 300 directors, producers, actresses, critics and colleagues from across the world, led by Academy Award winners Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Cannes winners Aki Kaurismäki (“Autumn Leaves”) and the Dardenne Brothers (“Rosetta”), to sign a communiqué protesting the far-right libertarian’s proposal.

EXCLUSIVE: Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has achieved his best global box office in a decade with Cannes Jury Prize winner Fallen Leaves which has racked up a total gross of $12.4M, according to figures released by its producers.

Marta Balaga As the battle for international feature film Oscar heats up, female directors behind this year’s submissions urge Academy members to stay open-minded. “Many outstanding films won’t be noticed simply because people don’t watch them. Established directors, big production companies or rich distributors are in a better starting position, but I encourage Academy voters to go for bold and diverse choices,” says Estonia’s Anna Hints, who’s behind crowd-pleasing doc “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood.” “The safest choice is not always the best,” echoes Tizza Covi, who co-directed Austrian selection “Vera” with Rainer Frimmel.

French director Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winning film Anatomy Of A Fall swept the awards at 36th European Film Awards in Berlin this evening, winning Best European Film, Director, Screenplay (with Arthur Harari) and actress for Sandra Hüller.

Cinema professionals from across Europe are gathered in Berlin this evening for the 36th European Film Awards.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The 36th European Film Awards are underway at the Arena in the German capital of Berlin. The awards have been voted on by the 4,600 members of the European Film Academy.

Cinema professionals from across Europe are gathering in Berlin this weekend for the ceremony of the 36th European Film Awards on Saturday evening.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor 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.

Martin Dale Contributor Victor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes” won best film at the 17th edition of Leffest Lisboa Film Festival, which announced awards Saturday night. Marking Erice’s first feature film since his 1992 docudrama “The Quince Tree Sun” and garnering almost universal positive reviews – Variety called it “an aching ode to film, time and memory” – following its world premiere at Cannes, “Close Your Eyes” has screened at Toronto, Busan, BFI London and New York.

If you’re searching for a proven precursor for the International Film Oscar race or even potential Best Picture nominees, look no further than the European Film Awards. Recent Best Film winners include Academy Award favorites such as “Triangle of Sadness,” “The Favourite,” “Cold War” and “Another Round.” This year, the European Film Academy, which determines the nominees and winners, has put the spotlight on three 2023 Cannes Film Festival breakouts: Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” from director Justine Triet.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves” led the European Film Awards race after nominations for the major categories were revealed Tuesday. The films were nominated in all five major categories – European film, director, screenwriter, actor and actress. Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” was close behind with four nominations – film, director, screenwriter and actress.

Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves and UK director Jonathan Glazer The Zone Of Interest lead the nominations in the main categories of the 36th European Film Awards which will take place in Berlin on December 9.

Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival returns this evening for its 64th edition with a screening of The Pot-au-Feu (The Taste of Things), the latest film by French-Vietnamese director Trần Anh Hùng. 

It’s been a good year for Aki Kaurismäki and his latest film “Fallen Leaves” so far. After the movie’s world premiere, it won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival back in May.

Naman Ramachandran The European Film Academy has revealed the nominations for Lux – The European Audience Film Award. The nominated films are: “20,000 Species of Bees” by Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren (Spain); “The Teacher’s Lounge” by İlker Çatak (Germany); “Fallen Leaves” by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland, Germany); “On the Adamant” by Nicolas Philibert (France, Japan); and “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” by Anna Hints (Estonia, France, Iceland).

Naman Ramachandran The 67th BFI London Film Festival has unveiled its full lineup, which includes galas and special presentations of films by contemporary masters. As previously announced, Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn” will open the festival and Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya’s “The Kitchen” will close it.

Arguably the most famous or well-known filmmaker out of Finland, director Aki Kaurismäki, has made a career out of the deadpan; absurdist comedies with minimalism, sometimes defined by Shakespearean tragedy, very still minimal camera and witty drollery. The films of his that have a larger comedic bent have said to have a lot of kinship with the films of Jim Jarmusch.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent 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.

Naman Ramachandran Auteurs Agnieszka Holland, Wim Wenders, Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Aki Kaurismaki are among the filmmakers featured in the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) Centrepiece program. The strand, previously known as Contemporary World Cinema, which honors and celebrates global cinematic achievements, features 47 titles from filmmakers representing 45 countries.

Film at Lincoln Center has set the 32 features from 18 countries making up the Main Slate of the New York Film Festival, from Cannes prize-winners Anatomy Of A Fall by Justine Triet (Palme d’Or) and Zone Of Interest by Jonathan Glazer (Grand Prix), to the latest by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Wim Wenders, Agnieszka Holland, Hong Sangsoo, Radu Jude, Yorgos Lanthimos and Alice Rohrwacher.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Cannes favorites including Jonathan Glazer’s searing drama “The Zone of Interest” and Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning crime thriller “Anatomy of a Fall” will play at this year’s New York Film Festival. Film at Lincoln Center, which presents the annual fete, on Tuesday announced the 32 films that comprise the main slate of the 61st edition.

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.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sales company The Match Factory has boarded the documentary “Cinéma Laika,” which focuses on Aki Kaurismäki’s construction of his own movie theater in Karkkila, Finland. Veljko Vidak directed the film, which was shot “in close harmony with Kaurismäki’s cinematic style,” according to a statement. The documentary offers an opportunity for the audience to delve into the realm of the Finnish master, engage with his peers, including Jim Jarmusch, and fully immerse themselves in the world of Kaurismäki’s cinema. In Karkkila, a small village in Finland, which has relied solely on metallurgical activities for the past two centuries, Kaurismäki and his friend the poet and writer Mika Lätti construct their own movie theater, called Kino Laika, within an old foundry. Using recycled wood and metal, and pre-owned furniture, Kaurismäki and the residents of Karkkila collaboratively craft Kino Laika.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the dates of its 77th edition which will take place May 14-25, 2024. This year’s festival wrapped May 27 with Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” winning the Palme d’Or, Jonathan Glazer’s “A Zone of Interest” take home the Grand Prize, and Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves” nabbing the Jury Prize. The jury of the 76th edition was presided over by Ruben Ostlund, the two-time Palme d’Or winning director of “The Square” and “Triangle of Sadness.” The first post-pandemic edition, 2023 was marked by an overall well-received Official Selection lineup and a strong presence of American talent and studios. Some of the anticipated films spotlighted at the festival included Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”, Todd Haynes’ “May December” and Wes Anderson‘s “Asteroid City,” as well as Disney’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” Pedro Almodóvar’s short film “Strange Way of Life” and Pixar’s “Elemental.”

Wim Wenders’ Tokyo-based Cannes Competition title Perfect Days has clocked a series of international deals for The Match Factory.

It’s a wrap for the 2023 edition of the Cannes Film Festival, where French director Justine Triet’s courtroom thriller “Anatomy of a Fall” has won this year’s Palme d’Or for best film.

The 76th Cannes Film Festival is wrapping up this evening with the main awards, including the Palme d’Or, to be handed out by Ruben Ostlund’s jury inside the Palais. Scroll down for the list of winners which is being updated as prizes are announced.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International 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 has 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. “Fallen Leaves” is the 20th film from Kaurismäki, who previously won the Grand Prix and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury for his film “The Man Without A Past,” which went on to be nominated for the best international feature Oscar in 2003.

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.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic 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 kitchen radio that looks like it’s from the early ’60s. “Fallen Leaves” is set in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, but to our eyes it’s a weirdly underpopulated place where shopping, as a pastime, doesn’t exist, and neither, in any meaningful way, does conversation.

“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.

Marta Balaga Finnish actors Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen have been making names for each other for a while now. But playing leads in Aki Kaurismäki’s latest film, “Fallen Leaves,” was a whole different story. “He has always been that household name, even when I was growing up on a farm in the 1980s, kicking a ball against our cowhouse. It’s crazy that now, we are here together. Also, he is really just a regular guy. Funny and he actually talks a lot,” Vatanen tells Variety in Cannes. A household name himself thanks to the “Lapland Odyssey” franchise, he has been exploring dramatic roles in “Forest Giant” or “The Man Who Died.”

The very first winner of the Palme d’Or in 1955 was future Best Picture Oscar winner Marty which starred Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair as two lonely middle aged adults beginning a tentative relationship in search of love. Before it was called the Palme d’Or, the top Cannes prize known then as the Grand Prix went in 1946 at the festival’s beginning to David Lean’s Brief Encounter, also the story of two adults who meet by chance and get together.

Ed Meza @edmezavar German cinema is in Cannes with new works by Wim Wenders and films that explore Nazi propaganda, gender identity, economic crisis, romance, betrayal and fast cars. In addition to domestic films, a dozen German co-productions are screening in this year’s Cannes Film Festival lineup, including major works from the likes of Wes Anderson, Aki Kaurismäki and Jessica Hausner. Wenders is in Cannes with “Perfect Days,” which is vying for the Palme d’Or, and the documentary “Anselm” in Special Screenings. “Perfect Days” tells the story of a Tokyo janitor (Kôji Yakusho) who seems very content with his simple life, structured routines and passion for music, books and photography. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past. The Japanese-German co-production is sold by the Match Factory.