Movies: Esko Nikkari

Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to...

After the coal mine he works at closes and his father commits suicide, a Finnish man leaves for the city to make a living but there, he is framed and imprisoned for various crimes....

Arriving in Helsinki, a nameless man is beaten within an inch of his life by thugs, miraculously recovering only to find that he has completely lost his memory. Back on the streets, he attempts to begin again from zero, befriending a moody dog and be...

Russia attacked Finland in late November 1939. This film tells the story of a Finnish platoon of reservists from the municipality of Kauhava in the province of Pohjanmaa/Ostrobothnia who leave their homes and go to war. The film focuses on the farmer...

Nikander, a rubbish collector and would-be entrepreneur, finds his plans for success dashed when his business associate dies. One evening, he meets Ilona, a down-on-her-luck cashier, in a local supermarket. Falteringly, a bond begins to develop betwe...

A farmer's wife is seduced into running away from her stolid older husband by a city slicker, who enslaves her in a brothel....

In Helsinki, an ex-law student turned slaughterhouse worker commits a senseless crime that catapults him into loneliness. Only a woman who accidentally arrived at the crime scene wants to follow him, but guilt and the tightening net of the police thr...

The ever-poker-faced Ilona loses her job as a restaurant hostess, as her tram driver husband, Lauri, also finds himself out of work. Together they must hit the streets of Helsinki, facing up to hardship and humiliation in their quest for survival, gu...

When Hamlet discovers his father’s deceased body, he finds himself pulled into a power struggle as his scheming uncle attempts to secure a monopoly on the Scandinavian rubber duck industry. Will Hamlet avenge his father? Will he become the king of ru...

A comedy of a Finnish man who falls in love, gets tangled deeper into a circle of lies and finds out that he has suddenly changed his name, nationality and skin colour for the sake of love....

Based on a novel of the same name by the Finnish author, Antti Tuuri, this delicious late-80's comedy builds its dark humour on the stereotypical mentality of the northern part of Finland. While perhaps not as entertaining to a person unfamiliar with...

Manne, Harri, and Ville Alfa are rootless twenty-somethings in search of purpose for their banal lives. After Manne steals a priceless painting from a group of petty criminals, Manne and Harri flee from the gangsters across Finland, while Ville goes ...

Kuningasjätkä is set in North Karelia in the mid-1950s and depicts the summer of 10-year-old Topi at the boating site with his widowed father Tenho....

Businessman Erkki Hakala returns to Ostrobothnia after years in Florida and buys a metal workshop in Jalasjärvi from the unknown Partanen brothers with his business partner Taisto Matsomppi. Erkki misses his wife Kaisu, who back in the day stayed in ...

The Minister of Defence asks sergeant Körmy to take part in operation, where the United States and Russia are to hand over their nuclear weapons launch equipment and codes to neutral Finland....

Ilona, a young elementary school teacher, arrives in Hämäläiskylä . He and Aarne, the host of Niskavuori, who is frustrated with his marriage, fall in love. The relationship becomes a public secret. Aarne's wife Martta, who owns half of Niskavuori, w...

Drama set in Stockholm and Helsinki and a village whose existence is threatened by a power plant. A group of young people return to their roots and are disappointed by what they find....

Young Alex Sammakko has seen his brothers defy the law in a series of deeds that first land them in jail, and then, after they escape and return to their rural home, land them back in the lap of their locally notorious family. Alex wants nothing to d...

The life of Irwin Goodman, a Finnish singer....

A political drama set in the fictional country of Illyria between 1943 and 1945, the story is about the assassination of a leading politician. The country, an ally of Nazi Germany, is on the verge of being annexed to the Eastern Bloc. Kaurismäki's T...