Pauli Pentti
Directing
Biography
Pauli Pentti was a Finnish director and producer. He also worked as a scriptwriter, lighting designer and actor. Pentti worked for a long time as assistant director to the Kaurismäki brothers. Before his death in 2022, he was working on the production of the TV series 'The Man Who Died'.
Known For

A quintet of cabbies in five cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.
Night on Earth

A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.
Ariel

Two young Finnish women in London are drawn inexorably together via the Studio - a clandestine group dedicated to bringing justice to those beyond the law. But, as their battle against exploitation, violence and corporate greed intensifies, will the Studio's ends continue to justify its means?
Cold Courage

Jaakko, a mushroom entrepreneur, finds out too late that he has been fatally slow-poisoned by persons unknown. He sets out to find the culprits before he dies.
The Man Who Died

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 between them.
Shadows in Paradise

Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds peace-time Helsinki rampant with persecution of the homosexual and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specialising in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. His work – made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’ – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.
Tom of Finland

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 get even and she begins to plot her revenge.
The Match Factory Girl

Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.
La Vie de Bohème

In a multicultural suburb of Helsinki, a bullied Russian immigrant decides to fight back, a young woman dreams of superstardom at any cost, and a junkie couple schemes their way out of debt.
Naked Harbour

After losing his job and realizing that he is alone in the world, a businessman opts to voluntarily end his life. Lacking courage, he hires a contract killer to do the job. Then, while awaiting his demise, he meets a woman and promptly falls in love.
I Hired a Contract Killer

The Leningrad Cowboys, a group of Siberian musicians, and their manager, travel to America seeking fame and fortune. As they cross the country, trying to get to a wedding in Mexico, they are followed by the village idiot, who wishes to join the band.
Leningrad Cowboys Go America

A Finnish taxi driver in Berlin gets in over his head when he accepts a fare from two men with briefcases full of money stolen from ruthless gangsters.
Helsinki Napoli All Night Long

Antti "Zombie" Autiomaa does two things well: play the bass guitar and drink. After several months' sleeping on the streets of Istanbul, he returns to Helsinki where he's called into the army but discharged on mental health grounds after adding turpentine to the officers' soup. Zombie lives bleary-eyed in an apartment off his parents' house where his lonely, unemployed father suffers from heart disease. His girl-friend Marjo has taken up with a hairdresser but comes back to Zombie. His friend Harri hires him as a roadie for his band "Harry and the Mulefukkers" then gives him a chance as a bass player. He has his girl and he has a gig, but can Zombie put the bottle down?
Zombie and the Ghost Train

Former student Rahikainen is pushed to murder when struggling to pay the rent on his apartment. When the murder is being investigated by the police, Rahikainen struggles between trying to hide his guilt and the pressure to confess.
Crime and Punishment

Talkative, hyperactive young drifter Ville Alfa goes around Helsinki, basically trying to borrow money from friends and strangers by means of an incessant delivery of quirky and snappy quasi-intellectual lines and fabricated excuses.
The Liar

Eco-terrorists attack a ship carrying toxic waste.
Seasick

Anssi Mänttäri’s low-budget movies with their intimate content have become classics. In this black comedy that takes place in Helsinki in summer the main character (played by Mänttäri himself) jumps from one bar and bed to the next. Especially vulgar black humour.
Viimeiset rotannahat

A documentary film about a tour of three Finnish rock bands around Saimaa lake system in a steam boat in 1981. The bands (Juice Leskinen Slam, Eppu Normaali and Hassisen Kone) are shown playing songs in their gigs and, in between, the members give intimate interviews or just act plain silly and have a good time.
The Saimaa Gesture

Anna Kelanen is an ex-model, who just has been released from prison. She thinks back on her life, when she was a rather successful model, and on the things that went wrong.
Paper Star

Kari Uusitalo, a regular visitor to the Tampere Film Festival, delved into the state of Finnish cinema of the mid-1980s, while getting to know the new generation of filmmakers in Anssi Mänttäri's comedic short documentary. Deep in Reppufilmi's cellar, in addition to director Mänttäri, we meet Pirkko Hämäläinen, Markku Toikka, Matti Pellonpää, Paavo Piskonen and Pauli Pentti. The film poses the question: why is a person, an artist, willing to risk everything over and over again?