The Other Side of Hope

(2017) dir Aki Kaurismaki w/Sakari Kuosmanen, Sherwan Haji [100 min; 35mm]

This wry, melancholic comedy from the legendary Aki Kaurismäki, a clear-eyed response to the current refugee crisis, follows two people searching for a place to call home. Displaced Syrian Khaled (Haji) lands in Helsinki as a stowaway; meanwhile, middle-aged salesman Wikström (Kuosmanen) leaves behind his wife and job and buys a conspicuously unprofitable seafood restaurant. When the paths of the two men cross fortuitously, an unlikely friendship is born. As deadpan as the best of the director’s work, and with a deep well of empathy for its down-but-not-out characters, THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE is a bittersweet tale of human kindness in the face of official indifference. – Janus Films