After a four year break, Finland's most internationally acclaimed director Aki Kaurismäki (photo) will be back behind a camera in March for the shooting of his French speaking film Le Havre.
Based on Kaurismäki's own script, the film tells the story of a shoe shiner who tries to save a child refugee. "Aki has had this project in mind a very long time, and wrote the script last summer. We are all well prepared and all the locations in the French city of Le Havre are set," said Hanna Hemila who works for Kaurismäki's production outfit Sputnik OY and will act as line producer on the project.
In the lead roles are French actor André Wilms and the Finnish Kati Outinen (Best Actress in Cannes 2002 for The Man Without a Past), Elina Salo and Ilkka Koivula who've all worked with the director in the past just like editor Timo Linnasalo, and cinematographer Timo Salminen. The €3.8m film is produced by Sputnik with co-financing from YLE 1 and support from the Finnish Film Foundation. The film is co-produced by France's Pyramide and Germany's Pandora, long time admirers and supporters of Kaurismäki's work. Sandrew Metronome will handle the domestic release on March 4, 2011 and Pandora's sales arm The Match Factory is responsible for world distribution.