The Other Side of Hope
Aki Kaurismäki
2017 | 98 min | Colour | 35mm

“Leave it to Aki Kaurismäki, peerless master of humanist tragicomedy, to make the first great fiction films about the 21st century migrant crisis. Having escaped bombed-out Aleppo, Syrian refugee Khlaed (Sherwan Haji) seeks asylum in Finland, only to get lost in a maze of functionaries and bureaucracies. Meanwhile, shirt salesman Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen) leaves his wife, wins big in a poker game, and takes over a restaurant whose deadpan staff he also inherits. These parallel stories dovetail to gently comic and enormously moving effect in Kaurismäki’s politically urgent fable, an object lesson on the value of compassion and hope that remains grounded in a tangible social reality.” – Film Society of Lincoln Centre

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Part of our Aki Kaurismäki season