O "nosso" Kaurismäki

O realizador passa metade do ano no norte de Portugal (em local identificado apenas como perto do Porto) tem aí casa e produz até o seu próprio vinho. Estreou este mês o seu novo filme "luzes no crepúsculo" (tradução livre de "lights in the dusk") e falou do seu país de adopção Portugal (os negritos são meus):

"Portugal was such an innocent country that I did not want to advertise it to tourists."
Through spending sixteen winters in Portugal, just outside Oporto, Kaurismäki has seen the country changing rapidly.
"In the late 1990s, in the space of about five years, Portugal went through the same sort of development process that Finland experienced between the early 1960s and the ‘90s. I tried to stand in the middle of the road, waving my arms and saying: ‘Hey, I've seen this before, don't do it'. But nobody listened."

For all that he has spent so much time in the country, Portugal does not feature in Kaurismäki's films, with the exception of the five-minute short Bico from 2004. This piece about the decline of a Portuguese hill-village was part of the portmanteau-film Visions of Europe, bringing together segments from 25 European directors.
"I don't believe I will ever make a full-length feature about Portugal; it would require a greater understanding of the details of everyday life here. At one point I was going to make Juha [released in 1999] here, as a talkie and in colour. I was already writing it when I suddenly realised I did not have the local knowledge to say what the main character would have taken with him as a snack when he went off to herd sheep."
As it turned out, Juha became a black & white silent, and more Finnish than pine, lakes and sauna combined.

Aki Kaurismäki: "Where have all those years gone? (Helsingin Sanomat)