The Other Side of Hope

VTIFF Presents: The Other Side of Hope
Host sponsor - Main Street Landing

Written & Directed by Aki Kaurismäki
Finland ⎮ 2017 ⎮ Fiction ⎮ 98 min ⎮ Finnish/Arabic w/ English subtitles
Awards/major festivals | Berlin Silver Bear Award for Best Director / Telluride/New York

When Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre served as the opening-night film of VTIFF 2011, little did we know that it would take the Finnish master six years to release his next feature. It was worth the wait. The Other Side of Hope — the second film in a planned trilogy relating to refugees in port cities — concerns a Syrian refugee trying to navigate Finland’s fickle asylum laws and the bewildering nuances of a foreign culture. Kaurismäki’s trademark deadpan humor is on full display here, but it’s tempered by barely contained outrage about the treatment of immigrants in Finland and beyond. With a minimalist style that combines quasi-documentary techniques and ironic comedy, The Other Side of Hope is a modern-day fable that’s both topical and timeless.

Director’s Statement: “With this film, I try my best to shatter the European way of only seeing refugees either as pitiful victims or as arrogant economic immigrants invading our societies to steal our jobs, our wives, our homes, and our cars.”