THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE

Finnish writer-director continues his trilogy on refugees, which started with the award-winning tragicomedy Le Havre (2011). It is dedicated to film historian Peter von Bagh, the director of the Midnight Sun Film Festival, which the Kaurismäki brothers founded in 1986.
When the authorities decline his claim for refugee status and make a decision to return the Syrian Khaled (Sherwan Haji) to the ruins of Aleppo, he decides to stay illegally in the country and disappears into the streets of Helsinki. There he meets, besides various types of racism, also pure kindness. A Finn Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen) finds him in the inner yard of his restaurant. For a moment life shows its sunnier side, but fate soon intervenes…