FALLEN LEAVES (KUOLLEET LEHDET) Luminaries

Finland’s Oscar^® submission for Best International Feature

After a six-year hiatus, Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki (THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE, AFI FEST 2017) returns with this delightfully deadpan tragicomedy once again examining class, love and loneliness in modern-day Helsinki. Ansa (Alma Pöysti), a recently fired supermarket employee, is longing for connection. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is a depressed steel worker who drinks on the job. When the two lock eyes at a karaoke bar, a sweet, but tentative romance ensues. However, a gust of wind—and Holappa’s drinking—threaten to pull the two apart. With omnipresent radio broadcasts reporting on the encroaching war in Ukraine, Kaurismäki finds the smallest bits of light amidst the darkest of circumstances. This poignant, “previously thought to be lost” fourth film is an extension of Kaurismäki’s Proletariat Trilogy and earned the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. –Josh Gardner