Lights in the Dusk
(Laitakaupungin valot)

Script:

Aki Kaurismäki

Director:

Aki Kaurismäki

Cinematography:

Timo Salminen

Set design:

Markku Pätilä

Costumes:

Outi Harjupatana

Sound:

Jouko Lumme, Tero Malmberg

Production:

Aki Kaurismäki

Shooting:

05-06/2005 (Suun. ensi-ilta 2006)

Budget:

1 380 000 € (SES 600 000 €)

Lenght:

78 min

Release:

3.2.2006

Actors:

Janne Hyytiäinen, Ilkka Koivula, Maria Järvenhelmi, Maria Heiskanen

Synopsis:

Lights in the Dusk concludes the trilogy that started with Drifting Clouds (Kauas pilvet karkaavat, 1996) and continued with The Man Without a Past (Mies vailla menneisyyttä, 2002). Where the trilogy´s first film was about unemployment and the second about homelessness, the theme of Lights in the Dusk is loneliness.

Like Chaplin´s little tramp, the protagonist, a man named Koistinen, searches the hard world for a small crack through which he could crawl in, but both his fellow beings and the faceless apparatus of the society see it their business to crush his modest hopes, one after another.

Criminal elements exploit his longing for love and his position as a night watchman in a robbery they pull off, leaving Koistinen to face the consequences. This is done with the help of the most callous woman in the history of cinema since Joseph L. Mankiewicz´s All About Eve (1950). As a result Koistinen loses his job, his freedom and his dreams.

Luckily for our protagonist, the author of the film has a reputation of being a soft-hearted old man, so we can assume there is a spark of hope illuminating the final scene.

- Aki Kaurismäki

Festivals:

Cannes Film Festival, France, 17.-28.5.2006, IN COMPETITION

Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä, Finland, 14.–.18.6.2006

Pula International Film Festival, Croatia, July 2006

Festival internazionale del films Locarno, Switzerland, 2.–12.8.2006

Norwegian Film Festival, Haugesund, Norway, 18.–24.8.2006

Espoo Ciné International Film Festival, Finland, 22.–27.8.2006

International Festival of Film Actors “Baltic Pearl”, Riga, Latvia, 1.–14.9.2006

Toronto International Film Festival, Canada, 7.–16.9.2006

Skopje Film Festival, Macedonia, 8.–15.9.2006

Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Brazil, 21.9.–5.10.2006

Haifa International Film Festival, Israel, 7.–14.10.2006

Pusan International Film Festival, Korea, 12.–20.10.2006

Festival du Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal, Canada, 18.–28.10.2006

30th São Paulo International Film Festival, Brazil, 20.10.–2.11.2006

Kyiv International Film Festival, Molodist, 21.–29.10.2006

Nordische Filmtage Lübeck, Germany, 1.–5.11.2006

Festival on Wheels, Ankara, Kars, Tbilisi, Baku, Turkey, 3.–26.11.2006

Nordlichter, Dresden, Münster, Berlin, Germany, 7.–13.12.2006

Finnish Film Week, Barbican, London, 7.–13.12.2006

8th Jakarta International Film Festival, 8.–17.12.2006

9th Istanbul International Meeting of Cinema & History Film Festival, 15.–22.12.2006

Adelaide Film Festival, Australia, 22.2–4.3.2007

Hong Kong International Film Festival, 20.3.–11.4.2007

Finnish Focus Season, Bristol, UK, 6.–19.4.2007

Aki Kaurismäki Retrospective, Zagreb, Croatia, April 2007

International Eskisehir Film Festival, Turkey, May 2007

Festroia – International Film Festival, Setúbal, Portugal, 1.–10.6.2007

Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia, 25.7.–12.8.2007

Brisbane Film Festival, Australia, 2.–12.8.2007

Aki Kaurismäki Retrospective, Buenos Aires, Argentine, August-September 2007

Kolkata Film Festival, India, 10.–17.11.2007

IFFI, Goa, India, 23.11.–3.12.2007

Finnish Film Week, Murmansk, Russia, 3.–8.12.2007

Kalingrad EU Film Festival 2008

Windhoek Wild Cinema, Namibia, 4.–13.4.2008

Aki Kaurismäki Retrospective in Paris Cinéma, France, July 2008

The Seattle Nordic Light´s Film Festival, USA, 23.–24.10.2009

Minneapolis’ Twin Cities Nordic Lights Film Fest, USA, 21.11.2009

14th International Film Festival of Kerala, India, 11.–18.12.2009

Awards & Prizes:

Production

Sputnik Oy
Museokatu 13 A
00100 Helsinki
Tel. +358 9 68 77 100
Fax. +358 9 6877 1010
Email. sputnik@sputnik.fi

Distribution in Finland

Sandrew Metronome Distribution Finland Oy Ab
Etelä Esplanandi 24 A
00130 Helsinki
Tel. +358 9 8866 7707
Fax. +358 9 8866 7710

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