THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE

Synopsis

The film consists of two stories. The first one is about Khaled, a young Syrian refugee who has lost virtually all of his family. Almost by accident, he drifts to Helsinki as a stowaway passenger on a collier to seek asylum without great hopes for his future life. Wikström, the other protagonist, is a travelling salesman of about fifty. He leaves his alcoholic wife and his profession and turns momentarily into a poker shark. With the small amount of money he thus gains he then buys an unprofitable restaurant at the far end of an inner court along a back street in Helsinki.

Director Biography

Aki Kaurismäki, born in 1957, grew up into “the age terrorized by the television”, and has tried and managed to stick totally to the inseparable realities of the real world and the “deep screen” that only the 35-mm film - light against the electronic machinations, the beauty of artisan tradition against technological overkill - makes possible. He never used any other material, least of all video, and he is simply very proud for having joined in the continuity and tradition of “real cinema”.