Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2017: #50. Dome Karukoski’s Tom of Finland

Tom of Finland

Director: Dome Karukoski
Writer: Aleksi Bardi, Mark Alton Brown

Finnish filmmaker Dome Karukoski has been steadily making features since his 2005 debut Beauty and the Bastard. His titles are often shuffled about along the festival circuit but he’s a notable, celebrated filmmaker at home, and his last film, 2014’s The Grump was a box office hit in Finland. His international renown may change a bit with his seventh feature (which is also his English language debut) with Tom of Finland, the official biopic of the Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, who became one of the most iconic and influential creators of gay pornographic artistry ever. The biopic charts his early life and rise to fame from the late 1950s onward.

Cast: Pekka Strang, Lauri Tilkanen, Seumas F. Sargent

Production Co./Producer(s): Helsinki Film (Miia Haavisto, Annika Sucksdorff), Aleksi Bardy.

U.S. Distributor: Rights available.
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Release Date: Tom of Finland is slated for release in Finland at the end of February, followed by a March release in Sweden. A world premiere out of one of Berlin’s sidebars would be a nice touch, but by the end of 2017 we expect Karukoski’s film to join the fall festival circuit, most likely at TIFF, where he is regularly programmed (2013’s Heart of a Lion and 2014’s The Grump both premiered here).

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