Aki Kaurismäki

Aki Kaurismäki, a truly exceptional director and screenwriter working in European film today, is a regular guest of the top festivals. He was an actor early in his career, including in his brother Mika's films (Arvottomat, 1982).

In features, he first sat in the director's chair for an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (1983), but he came to world recognition with his now cult road movie Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989).

In 1992 Karlovy Vary organized a retrospective of Kaurismäki's movies; the festival has continued to follow the career of the self-taught Finn with an eccentric but magical sense of humor, presenting later work as well: Total Balalaika Show (1994, documentary), Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana (1994), Drifting Clouds (1996), Juha (1999), The Man without a Past (2002, Oscar nominee), Lights in the Dusk (2006), and Le Havre (2012).

MFF Karlovy Vary