Dome Karukoski

Dome Karukoski
Dome Karukoski in Jussi Award 2011.
Born	29 December 1976 (1976-12-29) (age 34) Nicosia, Cyprus
Residence	Finland
Nationality	Finnish

Thomas "Dome" Karukoski (born 29 December 1976) is a Finnish film director, His feature Beauty and the Bastard (Tyttö sinä olet tähti) showed at the Berlin International Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival in 2006. The film, which stars Pamela Tola, concerns young people in Finland who are caught between conventional careers and more alternative forms of living. The film's score contains contemporary Finnish pop music, particularly hip-hop and rap.

He won the Norwegian national film prize Amanda sponsored by Canal+ & Svensk Filmindustri AB for best Nordic Debut-Film. Beauty and the Bastard was also nominated in 8 categories for the Finnish National Film Awards: Jussi Award. The film won the Audience Award and the prize for Best Music.

His second feature film The Home of Dark Butterflies premiered in Finland January 2008. It’s a drama about Juhani, a 13-year castaway sent to a home for boys on an island. The Home of the Dark Butterflies was nominated in 10 categories for the Finnish National Film Awards, and this time Karukoski won the prize for the Best Director.^[1]

The Home of the Dark Butterflies was also chosen as Finland’s representative both in the The Nordic Council Film Prize and the Academy Awards.

Karukoski’s 3rd feature film Forbidden Fruit premiered in February, 2009. Forbidden Fruit is a coming of age story about two religious girls. The film was shown in prestigious film festivals, such as Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and Shanghai International Film Festival.

Dome Karukoski's fourh film was Lapland Odyssey. It's a comedy about three unemployed men setting out to find a digital TV terminal in Lapland. The road trip comedy premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and became the number one box-office film of the year 2010 in Finland ^[2] beating such titles as Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1, Sex In The city 2 and Alice In Wonderland

Lapland Odyssey has been awarded in several film festivals and also received 4 Finnish National Film Awards: Jussi Award including the prizes for Best film and Best director.

In August 2011 Karukoski was announced to be the new director in the film about Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, after Hollywood director Renny Harlin had left the project. Mannerheim is considered as the greatest war hero in Finland. The film has struggled for years to get its 13 million dollar budget together.

In 2010 Karukoski wrote and directed a fictional short film Burungo together with actress Pamela Tola about the sexuality of young girls in the slums of Kenya. The word Burungo means both girl and commodity in the street language Sheng which is spoken in the slums of Nairobi.

Karukoski is the son of the Finnish journalist and American actor George Dickerson. He was born in Cyprus.

Filmography

Film

• Beauty and the Bastard (Tyttö sinä olet tähti) (2005)
• The Home of Dark Butterflies (Tummien perhosten koti) (2008)
• Forbidden Fruit (Kielletty hedelmä) (2009)
• Lapland Odyssey (Napapiirin sankarit) (2010)
• Burungo (2011)

Television

• Suojelijat (Episodes 2 and 5, 2008)
• Veljet (2008)

Music videos

• Jenni Vartiainen: Tunnoton (2007)

Notes

1. ^ Helsingin Sanomat: Animation Niko & The Way to the Stars collects Jussi Award for Best Picture of 2008
2. ^ [1]

External links

• Dome Karukoski at the Internet Movie Database
• Beauty and the Bastard website
• Forbidden Fruit from the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival website
• Lapland Odyssey from the Finnish Film Foundation website

Persondata
Name	Karukoski, Dome
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	29 December 1976
Place of birth	Nicosia, Cyprus
Date of death
Place of death