15/01/2009

With ten nominations, Dome Karukoski’s The Home of Dark Butterflies [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is the favourite for the 2009 Jussi awards, Finland’s national film awards, to be handed out on February 1 by Filmiaura, the association of Finnish film professionals.

Karukoski’s drama, produced by Solar Films, is running for Best Film against two European co-productions: animated film Niko and the Way to the Stars [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and the documentary Recipes for Disaster.

Niko is also selected in two other top categories: Best Director (Michael Hegner and Kari Juusonen) and Best Screenplay, a coup for producer Hannu Tuomainen, who co-wrote the original story with Marteinn Thorisson. Currently screening in 12 territories, the film described by many distributors as a “modern Christmas classic”, has now passed the million admissions mark worldwide.

Recipes for Disaster, in which filmmaker John Webster convinced his family to live on oil-free diet for a year, was one of the biggest theatrical successes in decades in Finland for a documentary film. It is also nominated in its own category and for Best Screenplay.

Sauna [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the horror movie by AJ Annila, is the surprising second most nominated film at the Jussis, with mentions in all technical and artistic categories, plus Best Actor (Ville Virtanen) and Best Supporting Actor (Tommi Eronen).

Another top Finnish actor, Tommi Korpela, the 2008 Best Actor winner for A Man’s Job [+see also:
trailer
film profile], will try to repeat his win this year for his role as famous Finnish novelist Lauri Viita in Falling Angels. The film directed by Heikki Kujanpää has four Jussi nominations in total.