Dome Karukoski

Dome Karukoski

Dome Karukoski in Jussi Award 2011.
Born (1976-12-29) 29 December 1976
Nicosia, Cyprus
Residence Finland
Nationality Finnish

Thomas "Dome" Karukoski (born 29 December 1976) is a Finnish film director. He is considered to be one of the most successful Finnish film directors with over 30 festival awards and having directed six feature films that have all become blockbusters in the territory.

Life and career

In 2009, Karukoski was invited by the President of Finland Tarja Halonen to attend Finland's Independence Day Ball: Itsenäisyyspäivän vastaanotto at the Presidential Palace. This is considered to be a great honour. The President invites artists, athletes, academics and public figures who are highly acclaimed in their profession.

In 2013, the U.S. magazine Variety named Karukoski in its list of 10 Directors to Watch. This was the first time a Finnish director made it onto the list which covers the whole world. He is also the only known Finnish director to win the main award in all of the National Finnish Film Awards: Jussi Award for Best Film Lapland Odyssey in 2011, Venla Award for Best TV series with Suojelijat and The Golden Peak Award for the Best TV commercial in 2011 with MTV3 MAX : Man's road.

His debut feature Beauty and the Bastard (Tyttö sinä olet tähti) showed at the Berlin International Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival in 2006. The film, which stars Pamela Tola, concerns young people in Finland who are caught between conventional careers and more alternative forms of living. The film's score contains contemporary Finnish pop music, particularly hip-hop and rap music.

Karukoski then won the Norwegian National Film Prize Amanda sponsored by Canal+ & Svensk Filmindustri AB for best Nordic Debut-Film. Beauty and the Bastard was also nominated in eight categories for the Finnish National Film Awards: Jussi Award including nominations for Best film and Best director. The film won the Audience Award and the prize for Best Music.

His second feature film The Home of Dark Butterflies (Tummien perhosten koti) premiered in Finland January 2008. It's a drama about Juhani, a 13-year-old castaway sent to a home for boys on an island. The Home of Dark Butterflies was nominated in ten categories for the Finnish National Film Awards, and this time Karukoski won the prize for the Best Director.[1]

The Home of Dark Butterflies was also chosen as Finland's representative both in The Nordic Council Film Prize and the Academy Awards.

Karukoski's third feature film Forbidden Fruit (Kielletty hedelmä) premiered in February 2009. Forbidden Fruit is a coming of age story about two girls who are a part of a religious sect called the Conservative Laestadianism. Forbidden Fruit raised a wide discussion of the rights of women in the sect. The film had its world premiere in the Competition of the Gothenburg Film Festival. After that the film was shown in other prestigious film festivals, such as Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and Shanghai International Film Festival winning numerous festival awards. Forbidden Fruit received theatrical distribution in France and Poland. Karukoski was again nominated for Best director in the Finnish national film awards.

Karukoski's fourth film was Lapland Odyssey. It's a comedy about three unemployed men setting out to find a digital TV terminal in Lapland. The road trip comedy premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and became the number one box-office film of the year 2010 in Finland [2] beating such titles as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Sex and the City 2 and Alice in Wonderland. In France the film was distributed widely in cinemas with the title Very Cold Trip. In the German and Austrian cinemas the title was Helden des Polarkreises which is a direct translation from the films Finnish title Napapiirin sankarit. In English the original title translates to the Heroes of the Arctic Circle.

Lapland Odyssey has been awarded in several film festivals and also received four Finnish National Film Awards including the prizes for Best film and Best director.

In August 2011, Karukoski was announced to be the new director in the film about Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, after Hollywood director Renny Harlin had left the project. Mannerheim is seen as the greatest war hero in Finland. The film has struggled for years to get its 15 million dollar budget together. If completed, the film would be the most expensive Finnish film ever.

In 2010, Karukoski wrote and directed a fictional short film Burungo together with actress Pamela Tola. The film handles poverty and the sexuality of young girls in the slums of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. The word Burungo means both girl and commodity in the street language Sheng which is spoken in the slums of Nairobi.

His fifth film is Heart of a Lion (Leijonasydän) where a neo-Nazi leader played by Peter Franzén falls in love with a woman who has a black son. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013. Heart of a Lion premiered in Finland October 18 and was an instant success at the box office defeating films such as Gravity, Thor: The Dark World and Now You See Me. Karukoski was again nominated for Best Director in the Finnish Film Awards.

During the Toronto International Film Festival Karukoski was signed to direct the official biopic of the Gay Artist Tom of Finland.[3]

The director's 6th film Mielensäpahoittaja titled in English The Grump premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014. The Grump is based on a book series written by Tuomas Kyrö. The tragicomedy became an enormous hit in Finland breaking its way to be a Top-3 Finnish film in the past 25 years (based on gross).[4] The film with a retired main protagonist got the Box office number one spot of the year, topping all the blockbuster titles including The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.[5]

The Grump was nominated for Best Fim, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role at the Finnish Film Awards bringing home the award for the Best Actor.[6] With his nomination for the Best Director award, Dome Karukoski became the first Finnish film director ever to be nominated for all of his first six feature films.

Karukoski has a talent of making films both for the audiences and the film critics. After Beauty and the Bastard was released in Finland, Markus Määttänen, one of the most acknowledged film critics in Finland called Karukoski "The savior of Finnish cinema".

In Finland Karukoski is a household name being a regular guest in radio and TV talk shows. He caused a small ruckus in the Finnish Film Awards in 2009 when he kissed the prime minister of Finland on the cheek when receiving the Audience Award for Home of the Dark Butterflies. His comment during the aftermath was: "People in Finland should kiss more".

Personal life

Karukoski is the son of a Finland-Swedish[7] journalist Ritva Karukoski and American actor and poet George Dickerson. He was born in Cyprus.

Karukoski has been very open in public about his childhood when he was bullied in school between the ages 7 and 14. The bullying started after he moved from Cyprus to Finland. Because of his experiences he has taken part of numerous events and projects that are against bullying in schools.

In 2013, Karukoski married his long-time partner Nadia. Their son, Oliver, was born in 2014.[8]

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

References

  1. ↑ Helsingin Sanomat: Animation Niko & The Way to the Stars collects Jussi Award for Best Picture of 2008
  2. ↑
  3. ↑
  4. ↑ http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/a1305917391219
  5. ↑ http://ses.fi/en/news/newsletter/newsletter-22015/
  6. ↑ http://ses.fi/en/news/news/?tx_ttnews[backpid]=130&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=847&cHash=7373fee812b9eaf7491f47eb75f72ed2
  7. ↑ Dome Karukoski: Menestysohjaaja näkee elämän tragikoomisena mutta arvokkaana (Finnish) Suomenkuvalehti.fi
  8. ↑ Dome Karukoskesta tuli isä – lapsi saanut jo nimen Ilta-Sanomat (Finnish)
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