Finland picks Compartment No.6 for Oscars’ Race

Juho Kuosmanen’s second film is also his second entry as Finnish candidate at the Academy Awards after The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki submitted in 2016.

The film produced by Aamu Film Company was selected by the Finnish jury as Best International Feature Film entry, “for its visual world and unconventional look at the difficulties of attachment.”

Compartment No.6 follows young Finnish woman (Seidi Haarla) who is forced to share her compartment with a rough Russian miner (Yuriy Borisov), on a train ride to the arctic port of Murmansk. Their unexpected encounter forces them to face the truth about their own loneliness and yearning for human connection.

The film was a hot ticket at the last Cannes Film Festival where it shared a Grand Jury Prize with Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics in a multi-territory deal with sales agent Totem Films. The US distributor who plans to release the film in the winter 2022, has an impeccable track record in Foreign language Film Awards, with 15 wins for landmark features such as Babette’s Feast, In a Better World and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

After its world premiere in Cannes, Compartment No.6 has screened in Karlovy Vary, Toronto, London, Busan, and just won Best International Feature at the Jerusalem Film Festival. The film supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond will open domestically October 29.

Read our interview with Kuosmanen: CLICK HERE.

Meanwhile The Gravediggers’ Wife by Khadar Ayderus Ahmed which world premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week, has been selected as Somalia’s first-ever Oscar submission at the Academy Awards.

Ahmed’s directorial debut (read our interview: CLICK HERE) was the first Finnish film shot entirely in Africa and spoken in Somali. The film was produced by Helsinki-based Bufo, in co-production with France’s Pyramide Productions and Germany’s Twenty Twenty Vision. Orange Studio handles international sales.

The shortlisted titles running for Best International Feature at the 94^th Academy Awards will be unveiled December 21^st, 2021. The final five nominees will be announced February 8, 2022.