Aki Kaurismäki

10.10.2015 Aleksis Kivi Society awarded him "Eskon puumerkki", which is annually given to persons, who have shown to have genuine Finnish obstinacy and self-will and with help of these attributes like Esko of Nummisuutarit (Heath Cobblers) has carved his signature into the chronicles.

Although Lights in the Dusk (2006) was chosen to be Finland's nominee at the The 78th Annual Academy Awards (2006), he decided to boycott the ceremony again and refused the nomination as a protest against the US foreign policy.

Although being nominated for The Man Without a Past (2002), he refused to attend the The 75th Annual Academy Awards (2003), noting he didn't feel like partying in a nation that is currently in a state of war (2003).

His film Crime and Punishment (1983) is based on Dostoyevsky's famous novel. Kaurismäki decided to make the film after he had read a book about Alfred Hitchcock written by François Truffaut where Hitchcock said he would never touch that book to make a film of it because it was too difficult. Kaurismäki admitted it was too difficult, but still the film was well received and now remains as a classic Finnish motion picture.

Both Aki and Mika are prolific film-makers, and together have been responsible for one-fifth of the total output of the Finnish film industry since the early 1980s, though Aki's work has found more favour abroad. His films are very short (he says a film should never run longer than 90 minutes, and many of his films are nearer 70), eccentric parodies of various genres (road movies, film noir, rock musicals), populated by lugubrious hard-drinking Finns and set to eclectic soundtracks, typically based around '50s rock'n'roll.

Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker.