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The Café of my Memories (Le Café de mes Souvenirs) is an international, French-Finnish music film. The movie is written and directed by Valto Baltzar. The plot runs partly through songs composed originally for the film by a renowned Finnish jazz composer Heikki Sarmanto. The movie was filmed in August and September of 2018 in Finland and France. The main language of the movie is French and the film has signed an international distribution agreement.

Table of contents
 * 1)  Plot
 * 2)  Cast
 * 3)  Crew
 * 4)  Music
 * 5)  Sources
 * 1)  Sources

Plot

The café of my Memories is the love story of Emilie and Philippe. Emilie works in a café owned by her mother in Helsinki and Philippe has moved from France to Finland to teach French. The plot runs through songs telling about love in a time where the surrounding world keeps growing tougher and true humanity is not easy to come by. When society gets more and more fragmented, not everyone can keep up. This is what happens to Philippe, who despite all his struggles decides to survive. The movie is a beautiful story about human relationships and how today's working life and te pressures of our surroundings can lead a person to the point of exhaustion. At the same time the movie is a story about starting over and building anew. The movie is an homage to the French movie classic The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) directed by Jacques Demy. This is referenced in the movie a few times, for example when Emilie and Philippe admire the movie on a screen. The rights to the references have been admitted by the son of Jacques Demy, Mathieu Demy.

Cast


 * Lionel Nakache - Philippe
 * Eveliina Kauhanen - Emilie
 * Anouchka Delon - Maria
 * Irina Björklund - Charlotta
 * Minna Koskela - Inna
 * Ilkka Merivaara - Elias
 * Elias Keränen - Timo
 * Victoire Vecchierini - Emma
 * Ines Kakkonen - Anna
 * Jorma Uotinen - Ilmari
 * Niko Saarela - Tapani
 * Gaëla Le Dévéhat - Colette
 * Marja Packalén - beggar
 * Larissa Saari - beggar, as young
 * Iida Ikonen - Ella
 * Ursula Salo - doctor
 * Matti Onnismaa - drunkard
 * Eero Siren - drunkard
 * Rainer Kaunisto - drunkard

Production

The movie was filmed in Finland and France. In Finland the filming took place in Helsinki, Porvoo, Kauniainen and Sipoo. In France it took place in Cherbourg and Paris. The producers of the movie are Valto Baltzar and Kimmo Koskela. Koskela is also the movie's cinematographer and his handprint in cinematography has received praise from critics, especially in a documentary that he shot and directed himself called Soundbreaker. The Café of my Memories has emplyed tens of professionals from the movie industry. Maria Jännes operated as the set designer for the movie and Anu Gould as costumier, who has worked with many internationally successful productions. In the movie Finnish and French fashion styles are intertwined together cleverly and Finnish design plays a central part in the set design, for example the handprint of Yrjö Kukkapuro and Marimekko can be seen in the film. The cities of Helsinki and Cherbourg are official partners of the movie. Other partners include for example Elisa Viihde, Fortum, Business Finland and the Aalto University School of Arts. The movie is one of the first movies in the world filmed using eco-friendly energy.

Music

Songs composed for the movie are a central part of the film's plot. The director Valto Baltzar has written the lyrics for the songs, originally in the form of poems, and Heikki Sarmanto has composed them into songs. The songs are interpreted in the movie by the Finnish and French actors and actresses. One of them is Irina Björklund who plays Charlotte, the mother of Emilie. Her French music album is one of the most sold albums in Finland in the latest years. Heikki Sarmanto has described the songs in his own words as follows: "The songs of the film have many different kinds of atmospheres, but the magical word to describe them as a whole is "languor". A thousands of years old languor, that resonates from within director Valto Baltzar. Every song has its' own charm and every song is its' own story". Behind the adaptations of the songs is Mika Laakkonen from Mökkitie Records. Laakkonen has added a modern twist into the soundtrack.