Film "LE HAVRE" by Aki Kaurismäki Will Open 17th Edition of Sarajevo Film Festival

Sarajevo Film Festival has the pleasure to announce that the honour of opening its 17th edition belonged to the film LE HAVRE by Finish director and scriptwriter Aki Kaurismäki. The audience in Sarajevo will have the opportunity to see the film which premiered in the Competition Programme of this year's Cannes Film Festival, on the Festival's opening night at the National Theatre and !hej Open Cinema.

LE HAVRE is a wonderful visual fairytale, comedy, and drama, packed up into a world of magic by the master's hand of Aki Kaurismäki. This is the film that had an excellent reception by both the audience and critics at the Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded the Prize of the Film Critics FIPRESCI, and ranked second according to the votes by the prestigious international critics jury of the Screen International Magazine.

Cannes Film Festival favourite made his name writing and directing droll little stories set on the margins of Finnish life. The audience in Sarajevo remembers his award winning film THE MAN WITHOUT THE PAST which was screened in 2002 within the framework of the Panorama Programme. However, his new film LE HAVRE which is set in the Normandy port town, tackles a social issue -- immigrant refugees passing through from north Africa.


Le Havre

This is a story about Marcel Marx, an elderly, down-at-heel shoeshine man with a literary past and an ailing wife, who rallies his friends and neighbours in order to help him save a young African refugee from the clutches of the law and send him to relatives in London.

This exceptional achievement is going to be presented to the Sarajevo Film Festival audience by the leading film protagonist, a brilliant French actor André Wilms. This is the second Kaurismäki's film in French, after the LA VIE DE BOHÈME from 1992, also starred by André Wilms. For this acting achievement Wilms was awarded by the prestigious prize of the European Film Academy. He also worked with Kaurismäki in films JUHA and LENINGRAD COWBOYS MEET MOSES.

During his rich career, this exceptional French actor played in over 60 films, and also worked with some of the most important filmmakers of today, such as Amos Gitai (ROSES À CRÉDIT, 2010), Françoise Ozona (RICKY, 2009), Claude Chabrola (L'ENFER, 1994), and many other.

Excellent reception of the film by the audience and critics of the Cannes Film Festival is the best proof of another excellent cooperation of Kaurismäki and Wilm in LE HAVRE. It is therefore clear that the first night of the Sarajevo Film Festival is going to pass in a world of fairytale created by great filmmaker.