News

Golden Globe-nominated Klaus Härö (“The Fencer”) and twice Sundance-selected Tonislav Hristov are readying their next pics with regular production partners Kaarle Aho and Kai Nordberg of Helsinki-based Making Movies.

While his latest WWII drama “Never Alone” is booked for a theatrical run in multiple territories including the U.S. via Menemsha Films, Härö, one of Finland’s most prominent helmers will start lensing his next bet, “Blue Baby,” in September.

Aho has revealed to Variety the A-list Finnish cast led by Oona Airola (“The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki”), Laura Birn and Jussi Vatanen.

Penned by Jimmy Karlsson and Kirsi Vikman, most recently credited for Härö’s English-lingo “My Sailor, My Love” which played in U.S. theaters via Music Box, the €2.9 million ($3.3 million) character-driven “Blue Baby” is set in modern-day Helsinki.

The story turns on two women, Inka (played by Birn), a specialist nurse in the...

The remarkable true story of Gustaf Håkansson, affectionately known as “Stålfarfar” or “Steel Grandpa,” is being brought to the big screen by Strive Stories, the Stockholm-based production company founded by best-selling author Jens Lapidus and award-winning producer Nicklas Wikström Nicastro.

Titled SteelGrandpa, the feature film will be shot in Sweden and helmed by celebrated director Mårten Klingberg (“Off Track”). The script, written by Gudrun Giddings (“The Secret World”) and Cameron Johann (“An American in Austin”), tells the inspiring and humorous tale of Håkansson, who at age 65, defied race officials who barred him from competing in the inaugural Sverigeloppet in 1951 because of his age. Undeterred, he rode the grueling 6-day national cycling tour anyway, without official entry, eventually outlasting many competitors and becoming a beloved folk hero across Sweden.

“This story is full of heart, just the kind of tale we want to champion,” said Nicastro, whose film “A Man Called Ove...

2025 is shaping up to be a significant year in the life of Berlin-based production company One Two Films, run by Sol Bondy and Fred Burle.

The pair produced Ido Fluk’s well-received jazz tale Köln 75, which world premiered over the weekend as a Berlinale Special.

Burle also co-produced Ira Sach’s Peter Hujar’s Day, starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall, which had its international premiere at the Berlinale following its debut at Sundance last month.

They followArmandfrom Norwegian filmmaker Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, which premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard last May winning the Camera d’Or for best debut feature,...

Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” (Mubi) opens in 1,949 U.S./Canada theaters this week. That’s not unusual for a genre film, but it also won best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival and its distributor is the theatrical division of niche streamer Mubi.

In the year 2024, wide is the new platform. “Conclave” (Focus), “Megalopolis” (Lionsgate), or “The Apprentice” (Briarcliff) will also go wide between now and the end of October. Pre-covid, they would most likely debut in a few New York and Los Angeles theaters.

“The Substance” isn’t a hard sell for a wider release. There’s strong advance interest among cinephiles for the original and gory body-horror story starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. However, it’s a first for Mubi.

Launched as a streaming site, Mubi expanded into the U.S. theatrical market in 2016 with very limited releases for films like “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki.

Katrin Pors of Denmark’s Snowglobe and Jussi Rantamaki of Finland’s Aamu Film Company are among the 12 producers selected for Ace Leadership Special, the business workshop hosted by the Ace Producers network.

The 2024 edition will take place in Bergen in the Netherlands in June and Mallorca in Spain in September, with online elements over the summer.

Scroll down for the full Ace Leadership 2024 selection

Danish producer Pors produced Hlynur Palmason’s Cannes 2022 title Godland, which became Iceland’s entry for the best international feature award at the 2024 Oscars. Her other credits include Jonas Carpignano’s A Chiara, Dagur Kari...

Niclas Larsson’s “Mother, Couch” was awarded the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film at Goteborg, taking home the considerable amount of Sek 400,000.

Led by Ewan McGregor – this year’s recipient of the Honorary Dragon Award – the U.S.-Swedish-Danish co-production also features Ellen Burstyn and “Bones and All” breakout Taylor Russell, making it one of the starriest Goteborg winners in recent years.

“My therapist was wrong! I pitched him this idea a few years ago and he said: ‘Don’t do it.’ I am from here and this festival has meant the world to me. Standing on this stage is a bit surreal,” said Larsson.

Jurors Lena Endre, Ramata-Toulaye Sy, William Spetz, Tonia Noyabrova and Anna Novion appreciated the way it shows “how difficult it is to let go of the past, accept loss and finally embrace the future.” They praised “original and bold storytelling, with a lot of humor,...

Picture Tree International has boarded international sales and debuted the trailer for Miia Tervo’s upcoming comedy “The Missile,” set to world premiere at Göteborg’s just-announced Nordic Competition.

Produced by Finland’s Kaisla Viitala and Daniel Kuitunen (Elokuvayhtio Komeetta) and co-produced by Estonia’s Johanna Paulson and Evelin Penttilä (Stellar Film), the film will be distributed in Scandinavia by Aurora Studios. Hannu-Pekka Björkman, Tommi Korpela, Pyry Kähkönen and Jarkko Niemi are also in the cast.

Tervo’s second feature after the award-winning “Aurora” – which opened the Swedish fest back in 2019 – teases a “uniquely crafted mix of political satire, heartfelt comedy and kitchen-sink drama, rooted in Northern brevity and melancholy,” according to its description.

Starring Oona Airola (pictured above in a first-look image), the film kicks off in Finkand’s Lapland in 1984, when an unexpected Soviet missile incident disrupts the tranquil life of single mother Niina.

Soon, she joins a...

LevelK has boarded “The Invisible Fight,” Estonian director Rainer Sarnet’s kung fu comedy set in an Orthodox monastery in the former Soviet Union. The film world premieres Aug. 11 in the main competition of the Locarno Film Festival.

“The Invisible Fight” is set in 1973 on the Soviet-Chinese border, where Private Rafael is on guard duty when his border post is attacked by a band of Chinese warriors schooled in the ancient art of kung fu. The only one to miraculously survive, Rafael, is fascinated by the long-haired, black-clad, kung fu hippies flying through the treetops while blasting forbidden Black Sabbath music from their portable radio. He’s suddenly struck by a revelation: he, too, wants to become a kung fu warrior.

Faith leads Rafael to an Orthodox monastery where the black-clad monks do their training, but his road to achieving the almighty power of humility required is long, winding and full of adventures.

Programme is for film directors making first move into scripted TV.

Projects by directors Juho Kuosmanen, César Díaz and Beatriz Seigner have won the inaugural prizes of Seriesmakers, a development programme for filmmakers making their TV series debut.

Led by Series Mania Forum and supported by European studio Beta Group, the first edition of Seriesmakers had 170 submissions, and saw 10 TV series projects participate in a programme for feature film directors who are moving into the world of series.

Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen and producer Jussi Rantamäki’s Yours, Margot won one of two €50,000 Beta development awards. The 8x45-minute series...

A project from Finland and a Belgium-Uruguay co-production have won the Seriesmaker initiative here at Series Mania.

The projects, Yours, Margot and The Invisible Ink, both bag €50,000 each after winning the Beta Development Awards.

They were announced minutes ago at Lille’s Series Mania Forum event, which is into its second day.

Yours, Margot is an eight-part drama from Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen and producer Jussi Rantamäki. The logline is: “After discovering her father’s letters to an unknown lover, Vilja unearths her family’s traumatic past in 1980s East Berlin.”

Kuosmanen’s 2021 road movie Compartment No 6 won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival official competition, and his biographical film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki won Prix Un Certain Regard at Cannes Film Festival.

The Invisible Ink comes from director César Díaz and producer Fernando Epstein, and also runs to eight parts. It...

Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, behind “Compartment No. 6” and “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki”– both awarded in Cannes – will now turn his attention to new series “Yours, Margot.”

The upcoming series is one of the 10 projects chosen for Series Mania and Beta Group’s Seriesmakers.

Based on Meri Valkama’s novel, “Yours, Margot” will be produced, just like his previous films, by Helsinki-based Aamu Film Company, with “Compartment” scribes Andris Feldmanis and Livia Ulman also on board. This time Kuosmanen dissects the experiences of Vilja, who spent her childhood in East Berlin, following her foreign correspondent father. After his death, she finds old letters to “Erich,” all from mysterious “Margot.” Now, as an adult, she decides to return to Berlin and track her down.

“It’s a great story about a person who looks for the truth about her childhood years, but finds only different interpretations and contradictory memories.

I have been tracking producer Sol Bondy since 2016 when co-production The Happiest Day in the Life of Ölli Mäki won the Un Certain Regard Grand Prize and the European Film Award for Best Debut. He and Fred Burle have been developing The Girl from Köln (aka Köln 75) with writer-director Ido Fluk, the filmmaker behind 2016 Tribeca selection The Ticket since 2019. "This project has been very close to our hearts in the last few years and we're very excited with the way it's been shaped so far," said Bondy, a Variety Producer to Watch in 2018. "It's been such a joy working with Ido on this exciting story and we're thrilled to have put an amazing team together," added Burle, Brazilian born producer who was just made a partner in One Two Films, alongside co-founders Sol Bondy and Christoph Lange. Burle joined One Two in January 2017, having graduated from the German Film and Television Academy (dffb) the previous year. He has previously worked as a film critic, at The Match Factory, and as curator of the inaugural dffb film festival. One Two Films has produced and co-produced award-winning films such as Holy Spider (Read my blog about it here), Vadim Perelman's Persian Lessons (Read my blog about it here), Jennifer Fox's Sundance breakout The Tale, Isabel Coixet's The Bookshop and Juho Kuosmanen's The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki.Other titles in the pipeline include Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson's dark comedy Northern Comfort, which premieres in SXSW later this month, Annemarie Jacir's survival drama The Oblivion Theory, Sarah Arnold's debut feature Wild Encounters and Michiel ten Horn's romantic comedy Any Other Night. In Berlin this year it was announced that Bankside would be The Girl from Köln's international sales agent and was launching sales. Alamode Film already has German-speaking territories and is a coproducer, who have very recently secured funding through the Fff, the local fund in Bavaria. It is in early pre-production and will shoot this year in Poland and Germany. The Girl from Köln tells the little-known story of Vera Brandes, who, in 1975, at the age of 17, staged the famous Köln Concert by jazz musician Keith Jarrett, which became the top-selling jazz solo album of all time. With Polish Film Institute backing, Oscar-winning Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska (Ida, Cold War) of Extreme Emotions is co-producing along with Annegret Weitkämper-Krug of Germany's Gretchenfilm (Seneca). Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Oren Moverman (Love & Mercy, Bad Education) serves as executive producer. Moverman also produced Fluk's previous feature, The Ticket. The Tale writer-director Jennifer Fox also serves as executive producer. Stephen Kelliher and Sophie Green executive produce for Bankside. It stars Mala Emde (Skin Deep, And Tomorrow the Entire World) in the lead role, alongside John Magaro (Past Lives) as Jarrett. Magaro was also in Cannes last year with Kelly Reichardt's competition title Showing Up.Other cast attached include Alexander Scheer (Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush), Ulrich Tukur (The Life of Others), Susanne Wolff (Sisi & I, Styx), Jördis Triebel (Dark), Jan Bülow (Lindenberg) and Marie-Lou Sellem (Tar, Exit Marrakesh). The NYU-graduate Fluk was dubbed "a talent to watch" by Variety following his feature debut Never Too Late, the first crowd-sourced Israeli film ever made. His American debut, the Tribeca competition selection, The Ticket, starred Dan Stevens and Malin Akerman. Upcoming projects include 24 Hours in June, a retelling of the final day in the life of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union, to be produced by Academy Award winner James Schamus (Brokeback Mountain) and Joe Pirro (Driveways). Fluk is repped by Amotz Zakai, Amy Schiffman, and Kegan Schell at Echo Lake Entertainment. He is also created the recently-announced HBO series Empty Mansions for Fremantle with director Joe Wright (Atonement, Darkest Hour) attached to direct the pilot. "From the moment I heard Vera's story, about how as a high school teenager she organized one of the greatest concerts in history, I knew her story had to be told," said Fluk. "We were immediately exhilarated by Vera Brandes' remarkable female empowerment story. Her strength, courage and sheer belief in herself and the music of Keith Jarrett will entertain and inspire audiences around the world," added Kelliher.

Finland’s Aamu Film Company will invest in Jenni Jauri’s new production company Silmu Films, Variety has found out exclusively.

Aamu, founded in 2001 and co-owned by Jussi Rantamäki and Emilia Haukka, has become a local arthouse powerhouse thanks to its festival-friendly slate, especially Juho Kuosmanen’s “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki” and Golden Globe-nominated “Compartment No. 6,” awarded the Grand Prix in Cannes.

“We had a good film with decent sales and we started to think about what we should do next,” Rantamäki said. “Aamu’s brand is simple and clear: we only work with a select few directors. We don’t want to change that; we don’t want to turn into a factory where you don’t know what is happening and with whom. So first we decided not to grow, and then realized we could invest in a new company instead.”

Apart from Kuosmanen,...

Tia Kouvo’s debut feature follows an annual family Christmas get-together that sees the usual tensions rise.

Screen can reveal the trailer for Tia Kouvo’s debut feature Family Time which is world premiering at the Berlinale (February 16-26) in the Encounters strand.

The comedy-drama follows an annual family Christmas get-together that sees the usual tensions rise. It’s based on Kouvo’s s 2018 short of the same name which picked up a special mention at Helsinki International Film Festival (Love & Anarchy).

Family Time is produced by Finland’s Aamu Film Company in co-production with Sweden outfits Vilda Bomben Film and Film i Väst.

New film from Selma Vilhunen, who directed 2019 Berlinale Crystal Bear winner ‘Stupid Young Heart’.

LevelK has boarded international sales for Selma Vilhunen’s Four Little Adults, which premieres in Rotterdam’s Big Screen Competition and screens as part of Goteborg’s Nordic Competition.

The Finnish feature stars Alma Pöysti (Tove), Eero Milonoff (Border), Oona Airola (The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Maki) and Pietu Wikström (Girl Picture).

The story is about a woman who discovers her husband is having an affair, and decides to explore polyamory without secrets.

Venla Hellstedt and Elli Toivoniemi produce for Tuffi Films and...

“The Woodcutter Story,” a Finnish drama with a surreal touch, has been sold to Australia (Palace Films), Baltics (Estinfilm), Sweden (Njuta), Germany (Eksystent) and France (Urban), Paris-based Totem Films shared exclusively with Variety.

Directed by Mikko Myllylahti, it sees a good man who runs into bad luck: he loses his job and his wife leaves, but Pepe (Jarkko Lahti) is trying to keep his head high. Even when strange things start to happen in his sleepy village.

The film, which premiered in Cannes’ Critics Week, screens Wednesday at the Helsinki Film Festival – Love & Anarchy. It will have its North American premiere at Chicago Film Festival and its U.K. premiere at the London Film Festival.

“It’s a very strange film,” said Myllylahti back in May. Also opening up about a real-life encounter – and real-life woodcutter – that inspired him.

“There was something very Finnish about the way he was dealing with his ordeals: sometimes,...

As the Finnish Film Affair embarks on the start of its second decade, the organizers of the annual industry event, which runs parallel to the Helsinki International Film Festival — Love & Anarchy, can both reflect on 10 years of success and look ahead for ways to continue to serve both the Finnish and the Nordic film industries.

“Finnish Film Affair started in 2012 with 240 participants. This year, for our 11th edition, we have nearly 500 delegates attending from over 20 countries, with a third of them being international guests and buyers,” Finnish Film Affair director Maria Pirkkalainen told Variety on the eve of the event, which runs from Sept. 21 – 23.

It’s a return to form for a Nordic showcase that, like other industry events around the world, has faced a range of disruptions since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

“The past years haven’t been the easiest for the Nordic film industry, and...

Berlin-based One Two Films, in Cannes this week with Ali Abbasi’s competition title “Holy Spider,” is prepping a new feature from writer-director Ido Fluk, the filmmaker behind 2016 Tribeca selection “The Ticket.”

“Köln 75” tells the true story of Vera Brandes, who, in 1975 and at the age of 17, staged the famous Köln Concert by jazz musician Keith Jarrett, which became the top-selling jazz solo album of all time. It stars Mala Emde (“And Tomorrow the Entire World”) in the lead role, alongside John Magaro (“First Cow”) as Jarrett. Magaro is also in Cannes with Kelly Reichardt’s competition title “Showing Up.”

Oscar-winning Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska of Extreme Emotions will co-produce, with Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Oren Moverman serving as executive producer. Moverman also produced Fluk’s previous feature, “The Ticket.”

Other cast attached include Alexander Scheer (“Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush”), Ulrich Tukur (“The Life of Others”), Susanne Wolff...

There is a sort of checklist for Finnish films — and I say this with love — that includes snowy exteriors, bleakly austere interiors, ice fishing and someone getting murdered with an axe. The Woodcutter Story ticks every box, plus a few more. Characters who barely speak, for example — and who may, indeed, have nothing to say. When they do, there is a jolting humor that may not be humor at all: their deadpan delivery gives nothing away. This is the Finnish way.

Director/writer Mikko Myllylahti — a poet who also penned the script for Juho Kuosmanen’s The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki, which won a major prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 — sets his Cannes Critics’ Week title in an unnamed village in the far north of Finland clustered around a timber mill. Myllylahti’s hero Pepe is a timber worker, played by the same actor...

One Flew Over the Cuckold’s Nest: Myllylahti Contends Hope Floats in Black Comedy

By their nature, fables provide fanciful cinematic avenues of metaphorical expression as they’re prone to subtexts and extoll wisdom, often a significant moral of the story like a resolute cherry on top. Mikko Myllaylahti, best known as the screenwriter of 2016’s The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (read review), cuts his directorial teeth with a darkly absurd debut, The Woodcutter Story. Bizarre and bleak as it circuitously ruins the life of his indefatigably resilient protagonist, Myllaylahti stuffs his film with allegorical tics and tones, raking coals of comedy through tragically exaggerated circumstances.…...

Finland’s Mikko Myllylahti returns to Cannes’ Critics Week with his feature debut as a director “The Woodcutter Story.” His short “Tiger” premiered in the same section in 2018, while “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki,” which he co-wrote with Juho Kuosmanen, won Un Certain Regard back in 2016.

“It’s a very strange film,” he tells Variety about his dark fairytale about the ever-optimistic Pepe, whose world – confined to a small, snowbound town – is slowly crumbling around him. Admitting that after “Olli Mäki,” based on a true story of a boxer preparing for his big break in the 1960s, he needed to “get away from reality.”

“I was fascinated by old tales and in Finland, they can be quite cruel,” he says. But the film was also inspired by a real-life encounter with a woodcutter from the north, not far away from his hometown of Tornio, whose calm...

"Unemployment is driving me crazy." Totem Films has revealed an early festival promo trailer for a Finnish film titled The Woodcutter Story, originally Metsurin Tarina in Finnish. This is premiering soon at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the Critics' Week sidebar section of the fest. If you follow Finnish cinema, this is the feature debut of the writer of The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki. Pepe the woodcutter's life in his idyllic Finnish village is torn apart over the course of a few days, but he is seemingly fine with it all. As though he knows some profound truth about existence. Very interesting. It's "a film that is very comical and very serious, metaphorical and plot-driven at the same time," the director says. "To me cinema is poetry. This is also where my background is: I started out as a poet when I was 23. Any poetry – be...

Cannes Critics’ Week film “The Woodcutter Story” has debuted its trailer. It’s the feature film directorial debut from Mikko Myllylahti, the writer of Cannes Un Certain Regard winner “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Makki.” The film is being sold by French sales outfit Totem Films.

“The Woodcutter Story” centers on Pepe, a woodcutter in an idyllic small town in Finland. In the span of a couple of days, a series of tragic events gradually destroys his quiet and happy life – but Pepe seems to be fine with it all, as if he held a secret to existence that is hard to grasp.

Myllylahti was inspired to write the story following an encounter with a woodcutter who – despite having lost everything – “accepted his ordeals with a smile on his face.”

Myllylahti said: “The more I thought of him and his attitude towards life I started to realize a potential for a story,...

Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut ’When You Finish Saving The World’ will open the section focused on first and second films.

Cannes Critics’ Week, the parallel section focused on first and second films, has unveiled the line-up for its 61st edition, running May 18-26.

The section will showcase 11 features, seven of them in competition, and another 13 shorts.

It is the first selection piloted by incoming Critics’ Week artistic director Ava Cahen, since taking over the reins from Charles Tesson, who stepped down at the end of last year’s 60th edition after 10 years at the helm.

At 36, she is the...

Festival titles ‘The Outfit’, ‘Murina’, ‘Compartment No. 6’ all debut.

Warner Bros’ Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore will try to invoke some of the Harry Potter franchise’s past magic as the major title opening at UK-Ireland cinemas this weekend.

The Secrets Of Dumbledore – the third film in the Fantastic Beasts spin-off series – will open in 716 locations, the widest-ever opening for Warner Bros, topping the 709 of The Batman from last month.

It is the eighth-widest opening of all time, just behind the 718 sites of Disney’s Death On The Nile from February.

The previous two Fantastic Beasts films opened in...

The story is about a woman who discovers her husband is having an affair, and decides to explore polyamory without secrets.

Selma Vilhunen has wrapped shooting on her new feature, Four Little Adults. The film stars Alma Pöysti (Tove), Eero Milonoff, and Oona Airola and Pietu Wikström, who both appear in Sundance and Berlinale 2022 selection Girl Picture.

The first image has also been released featuring Pöysti and Milonoff (see above).

The story is about a woman who discovers her husband is having an affair, and decides to explore polyamory without secrets.

The film shot in Helsinki for 31 days and is being readied for a 2023 launch.

In a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of the films shortlisted for the International Feature Film Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard.

A crowdpleaser that quickly became a word-of-mouth hit in Cannes, Juho Kuosmanen’s “Compartment No. 6” follows Finnish academic Laura (Seidi Haarla) who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Russian miner Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov) on a train from Moscow to Murmansk, a city in northwestern Russia. The Finnish film, which has drawn parallels to the Before Sunrise trilogy, was quickly snapped up out of Cannes for major territories, including North America, by Sony Pictures Classics.

What does it mean to you to be shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar?

It means a lot. This is my second feature. My debut film was “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki.

Paris-based company had a high-profile 2021 with titles including ’Compartment No. 6’ and ‘My Sunny Maad’.

Paris-based Totem Films will launch a quartet of first features with 2022 festival hopes at the EFM next week (February 10-17), including directorial debuts by The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Mäki co-writer Mikko Myllylahti and Italian actress Jasmine Trinca.

The company’s 2021 slate enjoyed a buzzy festival run, led by Cannes Grand Prix winner Compartment No. 6 as well as Berlinale best documentary winner We, Berlin Competition title Ballad Of A White Cow and My SunnyMaad, which took the jury award at Annecy.

Finnish...

GameStop: Rise of the Players, Adrien Brody passion project Clean, Cannes winner Compartment No. 9, Danish upscale restaurant drama A Taste of Hunger, Michel Franco’s Sundown and Woody Allen’s latest Rifkin’s Festival hit theatres crowded by Oscar contenders in a specialty market consumed by awards season (and as a major storm looks set to pummel the Northeast).

There’s more new content than the market has seen in many weeks, although these can be hard frames for indie distributors to find available screens. But it’s easier now than it will be after Feb. 8 and a crush of actual Oscar nominees, said one distribution executive. “We’re going in,...

Until just a few weeks ago, Spider-Man: No Way Home was set to face Spidey nemesis Morbius at the box office this weekend. Sony decided to push its “Ssu” (Sony’s Spider-Man Universe) film starring Jared Leto back to April, and nothing has come to fill the vacated slot. Without any new wide releases, the webslinger will have yet another weekend where it rules the box office. After reclaiming the top spot from Scream last weekend, the MCU film is set to have its fifth number one weekend, a feat only a few films in recent decades have achieved.

If Spider-Man continues with its 30-40% drops, it will fall below $10 million in a weekend for the first time, and on Monday it fell below $1 million in a day for the first time. Of course, this is nothing to fret about for the fourth top domestic grosser ever, currently at $723 million.

"A toast! To your inner animal." Sony Pictures Classics has revealed the official US trailer for acclaimed Finnish-Russian film Compartment No. 6, also known as Hytti nro 6 in Finnish. This first premiered in competition at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, and it also played at the Telluride Film Festival this year. This is Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen's follow-up to his acclaimed Cannes 2016 hit film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki. As a train weaves its way up through Russia to the town of Murmansk, two strangers share a journey that will change their perspective on life. A woman spends her long ride and a tiny sleeping car with a Russian miner, and this strange and unusual unexpected encounter leads them to face the truth about their own yearning for human connection. Starring Seidi Haarla & Yuriy Borisov. "A real journey through Russia's society with two unforgettable characters... It is a generous homage to humanity,...

After his debut feature “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki” won the top Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in 2016, Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen found similar success when he returned to the festival this year with his sophomore effort “Compartment No. 6.” The film, which follows the journey of two strangers brought together in a tiny sleeper car during their train ride to the Arctic, shared the Cannes Grand Prix, was selected as Finland’s Oscar entry, and this week was shortlisted for Best International Feature. Below, watch the first trailer for the movie, exclusively on IndieWire.

“Compartment No. 6.” stars Seidi Haarla as a young Finnish woman who escapes an enigmatic love affair in Moscow by boarding a train to the Arctic port of Murmansk. She’s forced to share the ride in a tiny sleeping car with a larger-than-life Russian miner (Yuriy Borisov). The pair find their...

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2022 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2022 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This is the first time since 2018 that the ceremony will take place in March, having moved to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly non-English dialogue...

As the end of the first decade of the Finnish Film Affair nears, the industry event’s director, Maria Pirkkalainen, who also heads Nordic Flair, notes its phenomenal growth, with more than 200 Finnish film projects showcased, more than 500 international guests brought to Helsinki, and the establishment of a major platform and networking forum for locals.

And things keep evolving, she says: “We are thrilled to now branch out to offer this to filmmakers from our neighboring Nordic countries as well. Not to mention we’ve curated over 2,000 meetings between our guests during all these years. And introduced hundreds of people to the art of sauna.”

The traditional sweat-soaked industry mixer, just one of the signature events of Finnish Film Affair, is typical of the creative approaches Pirkkalainen and her team have embraced in her three years leading the event.

The key driver, she says, is a focus on learning and...

Fresh off Juho Kuosmanen’s win at Cannes – where his “Compartment No. 6” was awarded the Grand Prix in July, sharing the prize with Asghar Farhadi’s “A Hero” – Finland’s Aamu Film Company will focus its attention on Tia Kouvo’s “Family Time,” scheduled to shoot in February and March 2022.

Produced by Jussi Rantamäki and Emilia Haukka, the film, primarily set at Christmas, will show a family of eight struggling to communicate and echoing Tolstoy’s statement that while all happy families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

“I have been working with the same directors for years, saying no to many interesting projects. Then I saw Tia’s graduation short and realized we have to find room for one more,” says Rantamäki, also behind Kuosmanen’s Un Certain Regard winner “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki” and Hamy Ramezan’s Berlinale entry “Any Day Now.

Juho Kuosmanen’s latest shared Cannes’ Grand Prix with Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Hero’, and also scooped the Ecumenical Prize.

Paris-based Totem Films has unveiled a slew of sales on Finnish writer-director Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment No.6 following its Grand Prix win at the Cannes Film Festival last weekend.

In Europe, it has sold to Austria (Polyfilm), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Denmark (Filmbazar), Greece (One From the Heart), Italy (Bim Distribuzione), Norway (Mer Film), Portugal (Legendmain Filmes), Spain (La Aventura), Sweden (Folkets Bio) and UK (Curzon).

Deals to the rest of the world so far comprise Australia/New Zealand (Sharmill Films...

Deal on Juho Kuosmanen’s Cannes competition entry also covers Latin America and Easter Europe.

Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) has acquired Finnish writer-director Juho Kuosmanen’s Cannes competition entry Compartment No.6 for North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

The deal was signed with Paris-based sales agent Totem Films, which is currently offering the film at Cannes after its competition screening last week. Kuosmanen won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in 2016 for his debut feature The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Maki.

Inspired by Rosa Liksom’s novel of the same name,...

Sony Pictures Classics announced Thursday it has acquired rights for North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East for “Compartment No. 6,” the Finnish film that premiered in competition in Cannes.

Acquired from Totem Films, it’s the second feature directed by Juho Kuosmanen, and is based on the novel by Rosa Liksom. Seidi Haarla and Yuriy Borisov star in the story of a Finnish woman who escapes a love affair in Moscow and connects with a Russian miner she meets in a small train compartment on the way to the Arctic port of Murmansk. The unexpected encounter during the long trip leads the occupants of Compartment No. 6 to face major truths about human connection.

Kuosmanen’s feature debut, “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki,” won the Un Certain Regard prize in 2016.

“’Compartment No.6′ is a treasure. One of the great train movies with humor and romance,...

Sony Pictures Classics said Thursday that it has acquired North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Middle East rights to Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment No. 6, the Finnish film that just had its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The deal was struck with Totem Films.

Kuosmanen’s second feature film (in Finnish the title is Hytti No. 6), inspired by the novel of the same name by Rosa Liksom, centers on a Finnish woman (Seidi Haarla) who escapes an enigmatic love affair in Moscow by boarding a train to the arctic port of Murmansk. Forced to share the long ride and a tiny sleeping car with a larger-than-life Russian miner (Yuriy Borisov), the unexpected encounter leads them to face major truths about human connection.

Andris Feldmanis, Livia Ulman and Kuosmanen penned the screenplay for the pic, which follows Kuosmanen’s debut The Happiest Day In The Life of Olli Maki,...

Following his 2016 Un Certain Regard win with “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki,” Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen is back in Cannes with “Compartment No. 6,” and this time, in the main competition. Inspired by Rosa Liksom’s book, it follows two strangers on a train to Murmansk, Russia: a young Finnish woman, dreaming of seeing ancient petroglyphs, and a Russian miner.

The action takes place on the train for most of the story. What were the challenges of staying in a confined space?

We departed from St. Petersburg and shot on the train for almost two weeks. But we didn’t go all the way to Murmansk, even though that was our first idea.

One obvious reference point was Wolfgang Petersen’s “Das Boot.” It might have been easier to shoot in some studio, but it just wouldn’t look that convincing. All these corridors and compartments, these are really small places.

His first feature film, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki competed in the Un Certain Regard section in 2016 and in a very packed 2021 edition – Juho Kuosmanen sees his sophomore feature break into the comp. Compartment No. 6 is a bleak travelogue drama – strangers-on-a-train concept starring Seidi Haarla (a possible Best Actress contender) alongside Yuriy Borisov.

Almost coming in at the top of our charts with an average grade of 3.3, we could call this the first surprise hit of the competition.

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If you’ve ever fancied taking the train from Moscow to the far northwestern Russian city of Murmansk above the Arctic Circle, Compartment No. 6 (Hytti No. 6) will almost certainly cure you of the urge. At the same time, Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s second film, which is about such a journey, offers up vivid emotional twists and turns that are charted with unusual acuity, qualities that will propel it to a modest but well noted life on the festival circuit.

Kuosmanen won the top prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section with his first feature, The Happiest Day In The Life of Olli Maki, in 2016. His new film, which is in the Cannes Film Festival competition, is based on a novel by Rosa Liksom and plays as a simple tale that nonetheless requires astute control of nuance by the director, and equally sensitive modulations from the lead actors to pay off.

by Cláudio Alves

After the virulently negative reviews that befell The Last Face, it's surprising to see Sean Penn back in the main competition so soon. Flag Day marks Penn's third directorial effort to vie for the Palme d'Or after winning big in Cannes as an actor. The reactions, so far, seem primarily positive, and that's a big step-up from last time. Another main competition screening was Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen's Compartment No. 6, which some have already compared to Before Sunrise. Back in 2016, he won the Un Certain Regard section with The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, so this promotion to the big league feels especially earned. To celebrate the occasion, our alternative program shall focus on these directors' earlier successes…...

For anyone who’s ever got drunk on bad schnapps with a stranger, for anyone who’s ever been properly alone in a nowhere-town and spoken to a dial tone just to look like they had something to do, for anyone who’s ever been asked how to say “I love you” in their language and has patiently sounded out the words for “Fuck you” … Juho Kuosmanen’s deeply delightful Cannes competition title “Compartment No. 6” plays less like a film than an incredibly detailed, richly textured memory. And for all the people who’ve never done any of those things, now you have.

A sorta-love story with exactly one kiss, meets a kinda-road movie where the road is a railway track. But while the strangers-on-a-train-get-to-know-each-other subgenre has its touchpoint in Richard Linklater’s beloved romance “Before Sunset,” “Compartment No. 6” rattles to the rhythms of much realer life. It’s the...

An archaeology student is on her way to Russia’s remote north-west when she has to share a compartment with a shaven-headed drunk

Despite the bone-chilling cold of its location in Murmansk in Russia’s remote north-west, there’s a wonderful human warmth and humour in this offbeat romantic story of strangers on a train. It comes from Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, whose 2016 film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki was a lovely comedy about a real-life Finnish boxing champ in the 1960s.

His new film is adapted from a novel of the same name by Finnish artist and author Rosa Liksom, and concerns a young Finnish student of archaeology, Laura (Seidi Haarla) who is in Moscow sometime in the early 90s; she has begun an impulsive affair with her professor, Irina (Dirana Drukarova). Under Irina’s tutelage, with her encouragement, and perhaps because this older woman...

After winning the top prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar in 2016 for his bracingly original boxing drama, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, gifted Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen graduates to the main competition with Compartment No. 6, an Arctic road movie that on the surface seems completely different. And yet these two films are flipsides of similar themes. The protagonist of Kuosmanen’s debut feature was a modest country baker serenely content with his place in the world, making him an odd fit for competitive sports. The new film revolves around a woman trying on the kind of ...

After winning the top prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar in 2016 for his bracingly original boxing drama, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, gifted Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen graduates to the main competition with Compartment No. 6, an Arctic road movie that on the surface seems completely different. And yet these two films are flipsides of similar themes. The protagonist of Kuosmanen’s debut feature was a modest country baker serenely content with his place in the world, making him an odd fit for competitive sports. The new film revolves around a woman trying on the kind of ...

A tribute to the Nordic film industry’s resilience, four Nordic titles have made it through to Cannes’ Official Selection. And unlike previous years, when Denmark or Sweden (Rüben Östlund) drew most of the worldwide attention, audiences should watch out for new and established voices from Norway, Finland and Iceland.

“Compartment No. 6”

Juho Kuosmanen’s sophomore feature marks Finland’s return to competition after a decade away (the previous Finnish film in competition was Aki Kaurismäki’s “Le Havre”). The Finnish director won Un Certain Regard back in 2016 with his black-and- white debut, “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki.” The story of a young Finnish student and a misanthropic Russian miner who share a journey along the Soviet Union’s trans-Siberian railway in the late 1980s, “Compartment No. 6” stars Seidi Haarla, one of the Berlinale’s 10 Shooting Stars.

“The Gravedigger’s Wife”

Finland makes history this year...

"I just miss the way she used to look at me..." ScreenDaily has revealed the first official promo trailer for a Finnish-Russian drama titled Compartment No. 6, originally known as Hytti nro 6 in Finnish. This is premiering in the Main Competition at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival coming up in just a few weeks. This is Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen's follow-up to his acclaimed Cannes 2016 hit film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki. As a train weaves its way up to the arctic circle, two strangers share a journey that will change their perspective on life. A woman must spend her long ride and a tiny sleeping car with a Russian miner, and this strange and unusual unexpected encounter leads them to face the truth about their own yearning for human connection. Oooh. Starring Seidi Haarla & Yuriy Borisov. "The film is a real journey through Russia's society with two unforgettable characters,...

Next month’s Mubi lineup has been unveiled and if you can’t make it to Cannes Film Festival, they are spotlighting recent favorites from the event. As part of a Cannes Takeover series, they will show Lisandro Alonso’s Viggo Mortensen-led Jauja, the Zambian drama I Am Not a Witch, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s The Wild Pear Tree, and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After the Storm, plus two films from directors who have new films in this year’s lineup, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Asako I & II and Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre, plus more.

Also in the lineup will be the Mubi debut of Magnus van Horn’s Sweat, which opens in theaters today, plus series on Jean-Claude Carriére and Luis Buñuel’s collaboration and a trio of films by the prolific Chilean master Raúl Ruiz. There will also be some recent festival favorites, including Arab Blues starring Golshifteh Farahani...