24/04/2006

Aki Kaurismäki’s Lights in the Dusk [+see also:
trailer
film profile], selected to compete in official competition at Cannes, has already been pre-sold to 13 territories by Köln-based sales company The Match Factory. These territories include the film’s co-production countries France (Pyramide) and Germany (Pandora), as well as Italy (BIM Distribuzione), the UK (Artificial Eye), Sweden (Folkets Bio), Norway (Arthouse) and Denmark (Huset’s Biograf).

So far, the film has screened only in Finland where it opened last February through Sandrew Metronome, garnering over 30,000 admissions.

Kaurismäki’s presence on the Croisette with Lights, the third part of his trilogy, was highly anticipated (see news) as his previous two films had also screened in competition at Cannes: Drifting Clouds in 1996 and in 2002 The Man Without a Past [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which won three major awards, the Grand Jury Prize, Best Actress (Kati Outinen) and the Ecumenical Jury’s Prize.

While the first part of the trilogy dealt with unemployment and the second with homelessness, this last film focuses on loneliness. It stars Janne Hyytiäinen, Maria Järvenhelmi and Ilkka Koivula and was also written and edited by the renowned Finnish filmmaker, who produced it for his own production company Sputnik Oy.