The Festival • The 40th New York Film Festival • About Schmidt • Auto Focus • The Man without a Past/ Etre et Avoir/ Avant-Garde • Bloody Sunday • The Uncertainty Principle • Springtime In a Small Town • Punch-Drunk Love • Divine Intervention • Safe Conduct • Friday Night • Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary

Join the Discussion Weigh in about what's playing this year at the Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater.

Related Resources • The 2001 NYFF

Elsewhere on the Web • Official Festival Site • Official Festival Line-Up

This is the full text of Aki Kaurismäki's Statement regarding his decision to cancel his appearance at the 40th New York Film Festival, September 30, 2002.


Suomi/Finland

Not with anger (which has never brought anything good), but with deep sorrow, I received the news that Abbas Kiarostami, a friend of mine and one of the world's most peace?loving persons, is prevented from participating the New York Film Festival because, being a citizen of Iran, he was refused a visa.

I had also been invited to the festival, which is one of the best in the world. Under the circumstances I, too, am forced to cancel my participation ? for if the present government of the United States of America does not want an Iranian, they will hardly have any use for a Finn, either. We do not even have the oil.

However, what concerns me more is that if Abbas Kiarostami is being treated like this; what will happen to nameless prisoners? I consider the Geneva Convention as the last hope of mankind, and as a private citizen on Finland, I accuse the Government of the United States of violating it.

Meanwhile, I would like to invite the present U.S. Secretary of Defense to a visit to Finland. We could take a walk in the woods and pick mushrooms. That might calm him down.

If international cultural exchange is prevented, what is left? The exchange of arms?

Somewhere, someone said that every man is created equal.

Aki Kaurismäki