37th edition
18-26 january 2025

Olli Mäki

Hymyilevä mies

Juho Kuosmanen

Image Olli Mäki
© Les films du Losange
FinlandSwedenGermany
2016 Fiction 1h32
OV with French subtitles
Summer 1962. Olli Mäki is a challenger for world featherweight boxing title. From the Finnish countryside to the bright lights of Helsinki, his future was predicted to be radiant. All he had to do was lose weight and concentrate. But there is a problem – Olli has fallen in love with Raija.
Scenario : Juho Kuosmanen, Mikko Myllylahti
Cinematography : J-P Passi
Editing : Jussi Rautaniemi
Music : Laura Airola, Joonas Haavisto, Miika Snåre
Production : Aamu Filmcompany, One Two Films, Film i Väst, Tre Vänner Produktion
The story of the boxing match that Olli Mäki is preparing takes place in a society where media coverage of sport was just beginning and still had, as we see in the film, a certain awkwardness, a kind of innocence. Today, the role of sponsors in sport has become commonplace, but in the 60s it was unheard of. Olli Mäki's manager made his career in the United States and is trying to import the methods he saw there to Finland. In the film you can sense a struggle between the show, which comes from the manager and the United States, and the European idea of a daily life where happiness is almost poetic in its simplicity. The film is a bit of a fable, a competition between two visions of what a hero should be: a man who takes his life into his own hands, who becomes a sort of manager of his own destiny – that is the American vision - and the man that Olli Mäki is, open to life and to feelings. (Extract from an interview with Juho Kuosmanen by Frédéric Strauss in Télérama)