Teppo Airaksinen’s film The Ragged Life of Juice Leskinen dominates Finland’s annual film awards nominations, followed by Selma Vilhunen’s Stupid Young Heart.

The Ragged Life of Juice Leskinen featuring prominent singer/songwriter/poet Juice Leskinen is running at the Jussi awards in 8 categories including Best Film, Best Actress (Iida-Maria Heinonen), Best Cinematography (Aarne Tapola) and Best Editing (Jussi Rautaniemi).

The film is the second feature length by Airaksinen, distinguished at Cannes 2017 for his short film The Ceiling (Katto). Launched on boxing day, the film produced by Yellow Film & TV has immediately conquered the nation’s attention and is still number 4 at the B.O. with more than 141,469 admissions.

Selma Vilhunen grabs 6 nominations for her second feature Stupid Young Heart including Best Film, Best Director and Best Script (Kirsikka Saari). The coming of age film produced by Tuffi Films had its world premiere at Toronto.

Aleksi Salmenperä’s Void, Tiina Lymi’s Happier Times Grump and Juha Lehtola’s The Human Part are tied with 5 nominations each including Best Film. Salmenperä and Lymi also compete for Best Director.

In the category Oustanding Actor of the Year, the experienced Hannu-Pekka Bjökman (The Human Part), Heikki Kinnunen (Happier Times, Grump) are facing newcomer Janne Puustinen (A Moment in the Reeds). East of Eden by Simo Halinen has four nominations for Best Cinematography (Hena Bomberg), Editing (Kimmo Taavila), Sound Design (Micke Nyström) and Costume (Anna Vilppunen).

Documentaries competing are Iina Terho’s Full of Love, Juho-Pekka Tanskanen’s Waiting for Barcelona and Virpi Suutari’s Entrepreneur.

Nordisk Film & TV Fond is associated to 15 Jussi nominations for the films Stupid Young Heart, The Human Part and East of Sweden.