Aki Kaurismäki

 

A Finnish film director Aki Kaurismäki was named the film producer of the year by the Film Producers' Association on September 5th, 2002. Aki Kaurismäki also got the Douglas Sirk Award 2002 in Hamburg on September 27th.

 

Aki Kaurismäki's  film named "Mies ilman menneisyyttä" (The Man without a Past) was also awarded the Grand Prix of the 2002 Cannes Film Festival in May 2002. Kati Outinen received the award for the best performance by an actress for leading roll in that film. The Man without a Past was awarded the film prize of the Ecumenical Jury, too.

 

Aki Kaurismäki got the best film Grand Prix in Flanders, Belgium, and the Nordic Council's Film Prize 2002. He has also got many other but smaller prizes in 2002.

 

Bangkok International Film Festival was in Thailand in January 2003. The first annual Golden Kinnaree Competition gave more success to Aki Kaurismäki. This is the most highly regarded prize for film making in Southeastern Asia and the competitition should be the equivalent of Cannes' Palme d'Or in Europe. Aki Kaurismäki's film The Man Without a Past got the Best Screenplay Prize and Kati Outinen (from this film) got the Best Actress Prize. In the beginning of  February 2003 Aki Kaurismäki got the Guldbagge Prize in the category the Best Foreign Language Film in Sweden.

 

See also Kaurismäki web sites http://www.sci.fi/~solaris/kauris/ ,  http://finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=160080&contentlan=2&culture=en-US and http://www.sea.fi/english/cinema.html#kaurismaki.

 

Aki Kaurismäki partly owns restaurants Corona (bar & billiards, address Eerikinkatu 11), Nightclub Dubrovnik (New York -styled lounge & lobby, address Eerikinkatu 11) and Kafe Moskova (a small Russian style bar, address Eerikinkatu 11) in Helsinki. More details and photos at http://www.andorra.fi/en/index.html.