The Finnish film director Aki Kaurismäki will receive the Carosse D’or prize at Cannes this year. The prize honours the full ouvre of its recipients. Aki Kaurismäki can be considered an auteur director, a film maker whose work reflects a unique personal style. One of his best known movies is Mies vailla menneisyyttä ”The man without a past” which won the Cannes Grand Prix in 2002. Kati Outinen was awarded the Best actress prize for her role in it. You can find a list of Kaurismäki’s films for example here.
A good place to experience the Kaurismäki style atmosphere is at Restaurant & Bar Corona, at Eerikinkatu 11 in Helsinki. It was founded by Aki Kaurismäki together with his brother Mika, and it is one of the best places to play pool in Helsinki.
A few blocks further down at Eerikinkatu 15 you can find movie theatre Orion, which shows movies selected by the National Film Archive (nowadays part of the National audiovisual institute). More on Orion and other places to see non-mainstream movies later, but here you can find their program of films in English for this spring. Unfortunately, Aki Kaurismäki’s films do not appear on the program at the moment, but probably there will be a series concentrating on them next autumn.