Tom of Finland (film)

Last updated

Tom of Finland
Tom-of-Finland-poster.jpg
Finnish theatrical release poster
Directed by Dome Karukoski
Written by Aleksi Bardy
Produced by
  • Aleksi Bardy
  • Miia Haavisto
  • Annika Sucksdorff
Starring
CinematographyLasse Frank
Edited byHarri Ylönen
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • 27 January 2017 (2017-01-27)(Gothenburg)
  • 24 February 2017 (2017-02-24)(Finland)
  • 3 March 2017 (2017-03-03)(Sweden)
  • 5 October 2017 (2017-10-05)(Germany)
  • 13 October 2017 (2017-10-13)(United States)
Running time
115 minutes
Countries
  • Finland
  • Sweden
  • Denmark
  • Germany [1]
  • United States [2]
Languages
  • Finnish
  • English
Budget€3.8 million [3]
Box office$1.8 million [4] [5]

Tom of Finland is a 2017 biographical drama film directed by Dome Karukoski and written by Aleksi Bardy. It stars Pekka Strang as Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, a Finnish homoerotic artist. [6]

Contents

Tom of Finland premiered on 27 January 2017 at Gothenburg Film Festival and was released theatrically in Finland on 24 February 2017. [3] It was selected as the Finnish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. [7] [8]

Premise

Touko Laaksonen returns home after serving in World War II. In post-war Helsinki, he makes a name for himself with his homoerotic drawings of muscular men. Before finding fame, he finds challenges from his sister and Finnish society due to his art.

Cast

Reception

Awards

At the 2016 Finnish Film Affair (a "work-in-progress forum" running alongside the Helsinki International Film Festival), Tom of Finland shared the Best Pitch prize, splitting the award money with Post Punk Disorder . [9] [10]

At the 2017 Göteborg Film Festival, the film won the Fipresci Award. [11] [12]

Critical reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 83% based on 70 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Tom of Finland honors its subject with an empathetic, even-handed, and above all entertaining look at the pioneering art he produced from private turmoil." [13] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Green League, shortened to the Greens, is a green political party in Finland. Ideologically, the Green League is positioned on the centre-left of the political spectrum. It is a reformist party and it is supportive of feminism, animal rights and green liberal ideas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom of Finland</span> Finnish artist (1920–1991)

Touko Valio Laaksonen, known by the pseudonym Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist who made stylized highly masculinized homoerotic art, and influenced late 20th-century gay culture. He has been called the "most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by cultural historian Joseph W. Slade. Over the course of four decades, he produced some 3,500 illustrations, mostly featuring men with exaggerated primary and secondary sex traits, wearing tight or partially removed clothing.

<i>Producing Adults</i> 2004 film

Producing Adults is a 2004 Finnish comedy drama written by Pekko Pesonen and directed by Aleksi Salmenperä. It was Finland's official Academy Award submission for Best Foreign Language Film of 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gothenburg Film Festival</span> Annual film festival in Gothenburg, Sweden

Göteborg Film Festival (GFF), formerly Göteborg International Film Festival (GIFF), known in English as the Gothenburg Film Festival, formerly Gothenburg International Film Festival, is an annual film festival in Gothenburg, Sweden and the largest film event in Scandinavia. When it was launched on February 8, 1979, it showed 17 films on 3 screens and had 3,000 visitors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dome Karukoski</span> Finnish film director

Thomas August George Dome Karukoski is a Finnish film director. He has won over 30 festival awards and having directed six feature films that became blockbusters in his home country and also received international recognition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pekka Strang</span> Finnish actor and theatre manager

Pekka Kristian Strang is a Finland-Swedish actor and the artistic director of Lilla Teatern in Helsinki, 2005–2014. He grew up in Vaasa on the Finnish west coast. In 1997 he was admitted to the Theatre Academy of Finland and graduated in 2001. The same year he starred in the movie Drakarna över Helsingfors and in 2004 he had a role in Producing Adults. Strang plays the titular character in the 2017 Dome Karukoski film Tom of Finland. Across three seasons he portrayed Stockholm's police chief Toivonen in Bäckström. Strang also played the main protagonist "Anlaf" in the Netflix movie "The Last Kingdom Seven Kings Must Die" 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aku Louhimies</span> Finnish film director and screenwriter

Aku Louhimies is a Finnish film director and screenwriter. He has directed feature films, documentary films, commercials and music videos. His international breakthrough was the 2016 serial drama Rebellion. He directed and produced the 2017 war film The Unknown Soldier which is the biggest box office hit since 1955 in Finland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pekka Haavisto</span> Finnish politician

Pekka Olavi Haavisto is a Finnish politician of the Green League who served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2019 to 2023.

<i>Daddy and the Muscle Academy</i> 1991 film directed by Ilppo Pohjola

Daddy and the Muscle Academy is a 1991 Finnish documentary film directed and written by Ilppo Pohjola. The documentary is focused on the life and works of Tom of Finland, the pseudonym of Finnish gay erotic artist Touko Laaksonen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pirjo Honkasalo</span> Finnish film director (born 1947)

Pirjo Irene Honkasalo is a Finnish film director who has also worked as a cinematographer, film editor, producer, screenwriter and actress. In 1980 she co-directed Flame Top with Pekka Lehto, with whom she worked earlier and later as well. The film was chosen for the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. In the 1990s she focused on feature documentaries such as "The Trilogy of the Sacred and the Satanic". Honkasalo returned to fiction with Fire-Eater (1998) and Concrete Night (2013), both of which were written by Pirkko Saisio. Concrete Night won six Jussi Awards in 2014, among them the Jussi for the Best Direction and the Jussi for the Best Film. Its world premiere was at the Toronto International Film Festival in Masters series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom of Finland stamps</span> Finnish postal stamps

The Tom of Finland stamps are a 2014 issue of three Finnish first-class stamps drawn by and celebrating the work of Finnish artist Tom of Finland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Finnish art</span>

Finnish art started to form its individual characteristics in the 19th century, when romantic nationalism began to rise in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland.

<i>The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki</i> 2016 film by Juho Kuosmanen

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki is a 2016 biographical drama film directed by Juho Kuosmanen and written by Mikko Myllylahti and Kuosmanen. An international co-production between Finland, Sweden, and Germany, the film stars Jarkko Lahti, Oona Airola, and Eero Milonoff. It tells the true story of Olli Mäki, the famous Finnish boxer who had a shot at the 1962 World Featherweight title.

<i>Racer and the Jailbird</i> 2017 film by Michaël R. Roskam

Racer and the Jailbird is a 2017 drama film directed by Michaël R. Roskam, starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Adèle Exarchopoulos. A gangster and a racing car driver fall in love, set against the background of a brutal crime gang in Brussels. It was selected to be screened out of competition at the 74th Venice International Film Festival in 2017. It was selected as the Belgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. It received five nominations at the 8th Magritte Awards, including Best Flemish Film.

Durk Dehner is a businessman, film director, and publisher who co-founded the culturally influential Tom of Finland Company, and later established the Tom of Finland Foundation dedicated to preserving, collecting, and exhibiting homoerotic art, a registered historic landmark in Los Angeles, California, US.

Ilppo Anssi Pohjola is an independent filmmaker, producer and artist based in Helsinki, Finland. His international breakthrough was Daddy and the Muscle Academy (1991), a documentary about Tom of Finland. Pohjola has produced the cinematic installations and films by Eija-Liisa Ahtila since 1993.

<i>The Missile</i> 2024 Finnish film

The Missile is a 2024 Finnish-Estonian comedy-drama film written and directed by Miia Tervo. Based on the true story of a Russian missile that crashed at Lake Inari in 1984, the film stars Oona Airola as Niina, an archivist for the local newspaper who has just recently left her abusive husband, and finds new confidence and strength in both her career and her personal life as she becomes increasingly drawn into the newspaper's investigation of the incident.

Miia Tervo is a Finnish film director and screenwriter, whose debut feature film Aurora was released in 2019.

References

  1. Lodge, Guy (11 February 2017). "Film Review: 'Tom of Finland'". Variety .
  2. "Tom of Finland". Gothenburg Film Festival . Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Karukoski Announces Tom Of Finland Cast In Berlin". Nordic Drama. 15 February 2016. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
  4. "Tom of Finland". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  5. "Tom of Finland". The Numbers . Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  6. Keslassy, Elsa (15 September 2016). "Protagonist, Helsinki Filmi Unveil 'Tom of Finland' Teaser". Variety. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
  7. "Tom of Finland valittiin Suomen Oscar-ehdokkaaksi". Kaleva . 4 September 2017. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  8. "Tom of Finland film to vie for foreign-language Oscar nomination". Yle. 4 September 2017. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  9. Keslassy, Elsa (22 September 2016). "'Post Punk Disorder,' 'Tom of Finland' Scoop Finnish Film Affair Awards". Variety.
  10. Aftab, Kaleem (23 September 2016). "Finnish Film Affair: 'Tom Of Finland', 'Punk Syndrome' split Best Pitch prize". Screen Daily .
  11. Alissa Simon (4 February 2017). "'Sámi Blood' Tops 40th Goteborg Film Festival". Variety.
  12. "Here are the Dragon Award winners" (Press release). Gothenburg Film Festival. 4 February 2017. Archived from the original on 17 February 2017.
  13. "Tom of Finland (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  14. "Tom of Finland Reviews". Metacritic . Retrieved 9 February 2018.