The 23rd Helsinki International Film Festival ? Love & Anarchy launches off on the 16th September with the total line up of 125 films. International filmmaker guests attending the festival include film producer Christine Vachon and directors Silvio Soldini, Janus Metz and Jaco van Dormael.

Christine Vachon (Happiness; Kids; I?m Not There) will be arriving to Helsinki as a guest both to the festival and to the Faculty of Cinematic Arts at the Aalto University. Vachon will be presenting her new film, Cairo Time, which will be seen as a part of the festival?s Undercurrents series, presenting films outside the mainstream.

The powerful war documentary Armadillo is one of the numerous festival films taking a critical look at war. The Danish director Janus Metz broke box office records with the film. Armadillo is part of festival?s Danish treats theme series.

Italian director Silvio Soldini, will visit the festival to present his latest film, What More Do I Want (Cosa voglio di più). The film is part of festival?s line up of contemporary Italian films presented in theme series Viva Italia!. What More Do I Want is a sensual depiction of secret emotions and stolen moments of time.

Jaco van Dormael?s romantic and existential chaos theory fantasy Mr.
Nobody will be screened as the festival?s Closing Film on Sunday the 26th September. The film has been compared to the works of Kubrick, Lynch, Noé, Von Trier and Jonze, and it features Jared Leto?s brilliant return to the silver screen.

Festival?s other guests include the Irish documentary filmmaker Pat Collins with his portrait of the actor Gabriel Byrne titled Gabriel
Byrne: Stories from Home, Swedish director Jörgen Bergmark (A Rational
Solution) and Finnish documentary filmmaker Pirjo Honkasalo with her praised new film Ito ? The Diary of an Urban Priest.


FINNKINO PRIZE
For the third time, Helsinki International Film Festival and the Finnish distribution company Finnkino give out Finnkino Prize for one of the six nominees, selected by the festival programmers. The winner of the national distribution contract will be selected by the festival audience. This year?s nominees are:

ALL THAT I LOVE (Wszystko, co kocham), Jacek Borcuch, Poland 2009 LOURDES, Jessica Hausner, Austria, France, Germany 2009 MOTHER (Madeo), Joon-ho Bong, South-Korea 2009 SUMMER WARS (Samâ wôzu), Mamoru Hosoda, Japan 2009 (UNTITLED), Jonathan Parker, USA 2009 WINTER?S BONE, Debra Granik, USA 2010

The winner will be announced on the closing day of this year?s Love & Anarchy festival, Sunday the 26th September. The winning film will be released to Finnkino theatres in Finland during the winter 2010-2011.