OTHER SIDE OF HOPE, THE (CRITERION)

This wry, melancholic comedy from Aki Kaurismäki, a response to the ongoing global refugee crisis, follows two people searching for a place to call home. Khaled (Sherwan Haji), a displaced Syrian, lands in Helsinki as a stowaway; meanwhile, middle-aged Finnish salesman Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen) leaves his wife and his job and buys a conspicuously unprofitable seafood restaurant. Khaled is denied asylum but decides not to return to Aleppo—and the paths of the two men cross fortuitously. As deadpan as the best of the director's work, and with a deep well of empathy for its down-but-not-out characters (many of them played by members of Kaurismäki's loyal stock company), The Other Side of Hope is a bittersweet tale of human kindness in the face of official indifference.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• NEW 2K DIGITAL TRANSFER, approved by director Aki Kaurismäki, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with actor Sherwan Haji
• Footage from the 2017 Berlin Film Festival press conference for the film, featuring Kaurismäki and the film's actors
• Aki and Peter, a new video essay by Daniel Raim about the friendship between Kaurismäki and film critic Peter von Bagh, to whom the film is dedicated
• Music videos
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Girish Shambu