Aki Kaurismäki

Directeur, Scénariste, Producteur, Éditeur, Acteur, Compositeur

4 avril 1957 (69 ans)
Aki Olavi Kaurismäki (Finnish: [ˈɑki ˈkɑu̯rismæki]; born April 4,1957; Orimattila) is a Finnish film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and actor. He is best known for the award-winning Drifting Clouds (1996), The Man Without a Past (2002), Le Havre (2011), The Other Side of Hope (2017) and Fallen Leaves (2023), as well as for the mockumentary Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989). He is described as Finland's best-known film director. He is the younger brother of director and screenwriter Mika Kaurismäki.

After graduating in media studies from the University of Tampere, Kaurismäki worked as a bricklayer, postman, and dish-washer, long before pursuing his interest in cinema, first as a critic, and later as a screenwriter & director. He started his career as a co-screenwriter and actor in films made by his older brother, Mika Kaurismäki. He played the main role in Mika's film The Liar (1981). Together they founded the production company Villealfa Filmproductions and later the Midnight Sun Film Festival. His debut as an independent director was Crime and Punishment (1983), an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel set in modern Helsinki. He gained worldwide attention with Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989).

Kaurismäki's film Ariel (1988) was entered into the 16th Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Prix FIPRESCI. Kaurismäki's most acclaimed film has been The Man Without a Past, which won the Grand Prix and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category in 2003. However, Kaurismäki refused to attend the Oscar ceremony, asserting that he did not feel like partying in a country that was in a state of war. Kaurismäki's next film, Lights in the Dusk, was also chosen to be Finland's nominee for best foreign-language film, but Kaurismäki again boycotted the awards and refused the nomination, as a protest against U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy. In 2002 Kaurismäki also boycotted the 40th New York Film Festival in a show of solidarity with the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, who was not given a US visa in time for the festival. Kaurismäki's 2017 film The Other Side of Hope won the Silver Bear for Best Director award at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. At the same festival he also announced that it would be his last film, although the retirement was short-lived as he began filming Fallen Leaves in 2022, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.

Connue pour

  • Les Feuilles mortes
    Les Feuilles mortes2023
  • L'Homme sans passé
    L'Homme sans passé2002
  • Le Havre
    Le Havre2011
  • La Fille aux allumettes
    La Fille aux allumettes1990
  • L'Autre côté de l'espoir
    L'Autre côté de l'espoir2017
  • Au loin s'en vont les nuages
    Au loin s'en vont les nuages1996
  • J'ai engagé un tueur
    J'ai engagé un tueur1990
  • Les lumières du faubourg
    Les lumières du faubourg2006
  • La vie de bohème
    La vie de bohème1992
  • Ariel
    Ariel1988
  • Leningrad Cowboys go America
    Leningrad Cowboys go America1989
  • Ombres au paradis
    Ombres au paradis1986
  • Juha
    Juha1999
  • Tiens ton foulard, Tatiana
    Tiens ton foulard, Tatiana1994
  • Calamari Union
    Calamari Union1985
  • Ten Minutes Older : The Trumpet
    Ten Minutes Older : The Trumpet2002
  • Hamlet Goes Business
    Hamlet Goes Business1987
  • Les Leningrad Cowboys rencontrent Moise
    Les Leningrad Cowboys rencontrent Moise1994
  • Chacun son cinema ou Ce petit coup au coeur quand la lumiere s'eteint et que le film commence
    Chacun son cinema ou Ce petit coup au coeur quand la lumiere s'eteint et que le film commence2007
  • Crime et châtiment
    Crime et châtiment1983

Filmographie