Ilkka Järvi-Laturi
Directing
Biography
Ilkka Untamo Järvi-Laturi (November 28, 1961 – March 5, 2023) was a Finnish-born US-based film director whose best known film is Spy Games (1999) starring Bill Pullman and Irene Jacob. The film was shot in Helsinki, New York and Toronto. Järvi-Laturi has a cameo role in the film. Before making the film Spy Games, Järvi-Laturi directed and served as co-director of several films in Finland. He has also acted in the 1985 film The Unknown Soldier. Järvi-Laturi won the Nordic Film Prize for the best Scandinavian Film of The Year and the highest Finnish film prize Jussi Award (best screenplay) in 1990 for Kotia Päin (Homebound). His Estonian actioner Darkness in Tallinn is the most widely distributed Estonian film so far, and won the Silver Alexander in Thessaloniki and the Fassbinder prize in Mannheim. He previously lived in New York and Beijing.
Known For
Based on Franz Kafka's famous novel, director Jaakko Pakkasvirta created this interpretation of the woebegone Josef K., who is trapped in an ever-increasing labyrinth of double talk and bureaucratic nonsense in his efforts to reach the castle. As Josef seeks to make an appointment to see the ruler Herr Klamm inside his inaccessible abode, he becomes enmeshed in abuse from lowly villagers and bureaucrats alike. His endless false starts toward the castle's enigmatic interior are partly offset by a few sexual encounters but nothing alleviates his role as a victim of forces beyond his control.
Linna
A romantic suspense-comedy about CIA agent Harry (Bill Pullman) and SVR agent Natasha (Irene Jacob) fighting to save the world, their lives and secret love in the post cold war Helsinki.
Spy Games
After Nazi Germany invades Poland in September 1939, Russia attacks Finland two months later. Finnish reservists leave home and go to war. Brothers Martti and Paavo Hakala, farmers from the municipality of Kauhava in the province of Pohjanmaa/Ostrobothnia, serve in a Finnish platoon.
The Winter War
The story of an unspecified country ravaged by civil war, with its rebels and spies.
Huomenna
Mika's mother marries a man who is getting out of the jail. At the beginning everything seems to be all right. Mika leaves Oulu, an industrial city up in Northern Finland, to study in the capital, Helsinki. He does very well with his studies and also begins a relationship with the girl he knew already back in Oulu. Meanwhile the new husband reveals his true self - and all of a sudden things get very serious.
Homebound
Second silver screen adaption of the Finnish war book by Väinö Linna. The story is based on Linna's experiences as an infantry man in the Finnish army during the so called "Continuation War" (1941-1944).
The Unknown Soldier
In August, 1991, Estonia reclaims its independence from the USSR and brings to its national bank nearly $1 billion in gold bullion hidden in Paris for 50 years. Russian mobsters have a bold plan to hijack the gold after shutting down the capital's power at midnight
City Unplugged
A Finnish businessman finds himself at the center of an international corruption scandal.
Tropic of Ice – Jään kääntöpiiri
Lumberjacking is a second part of saga about young author, Kalle Päätalo. It's a story about growing up and becoming a storyteller in hard times when their father was in the forced labour camp. He was a lunatic.
Nuoruuteni savotat
A short story about a moped-driving boy who works at his uncle's small gas station in rural Finland.