Featured image – Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki.
Sydney Film Festival, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) are delighted to announce that David Stratton will present a program of 10 essential films directed by the great Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki.
Entitled Essential Kaurismäki: Selected by David Stratton, the curated films will screen as a retrospective program at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Dendy Opera Quays cinema, as part of the 65th Sydney Film Festival (6-17 June). The retrospective will also screen in Melbourne at ACMI (14-30 June) and in Canberra at NFSA’s Arc cinema (29 June – 10 July).
This retrospective consists of ten of the finest films made by Kaurismäski, from Crime and Punishment (1983) to Le Havre (2011).
Since his debut, Aki Kaurismäki has become Finland’s most celebrated filmmaker. Known for his idiosyncratic, droll style, his films provide social criticism through the stories of ordinary people who overcome all the odds stacked against them to achieve modest successes.
Renowned critic and broadcaster, David Stratton, a former director of the Sydney Film Festival (1966 to 1983) will also introduce the Sydney screenings.
David Stratton said, “Kaurismäki is the complete auteur, producing, directing, scripting and usually editing his films. A master of the deadpan, the dialogue in his films is laconic and laced with stoic humour, not including a streak of sentiment, despite the presence of a loveable dog in almost every movie. ”
“This retrospective is a great showcase of his signature style and will be a revelation to those unfamiliar with the work of an exceptional director.”
The 10 films in the program are:
| Crime and Punishment (1983) | La Vie de Boheme (1992) |
| Shadows in Paradise (1986) | Drifting Clouds (1996) |
| Ariel (1988) | The Man Without a Past (2002) |
| Leningrad Cowboys go America (1989) | Lights in the Dusk (2006) |
| The Match Factory Girl (1990) | Le Havre (2011 |