30/08/2013 - Finnish directors Pirjo Honkasalo’s return to fiction and Dome Karukoski’s Heart of a Lion selected for the Toronto International Film Festival (September 5-15)

Since the award-winning Fire-Eater (1998) Finnish director Pirjo Honkasalo has concentrated on documentaries; her return to fiction, Concrete Night (photo), will have its world premiere in the Master Series at the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs between September 5-15.

Based on Finnish author Pirkko Saisio’s novel, starring Johannes Brotherus and Jari Virman, Concrete Night [+see also:
trailer
film profile] follows two brothers during 24 hours in Helsinki – the last 24 hours of freedom for Ilkka, who is getting ready to serve a prison sentence. His younger brother Simo cherishes a boundless admiration for him.

”It is not a film about school killings, mass murderers, or the Chechen brothers in Boston, but about a young mind that was shattered long before the all-encompassing misanthropy may have got a hold of it,” Honkasalo explained.

Scripted by Honkasalo and Pirkko Saisio, and produced by Mark Lwoff and Misha Jaari, for Bufo, with Sweden’s Plattform and Denmark’s Magic Hour, Concrete Night will screen in the Helsinki International Film Festival - Love and Anarchy (September 19-29), before its domestic launch on November 1.

After Lapland Odyssey [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which granted him, ao, a Jussi – Finland’s national film prize – for Best Director, Finnish director Dome Karukoski is ready with Heart of a Lion [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which will also have its world premiere in Toronto, in the Contemporary World Cinema section.

Written by Aleksi Bardy (who also produced for Helsinki-filmi, with Martin Persson - Anagram Film & TV), Heart of a Lion follows a neo-nazi skinhead in his early forties (Peter Franzén) trying to win the heart of his girlfriend’s (Laura Birn) 10-year-old coloured boy who wants to get rid of him by any means.

Karukoski, who is currently working on his comedy about family relationships, Very Grumpy Old Men, will present his feature at a gala during the upcoming Helsinki festival, before its general release on October 18 through Scanbox Entertainment Finland.