Matti Pellonpää
Also Known As: Tino Sandos, Martti Pellonpää, マッティ・ペロンパー
Biography: Matti Pellonpää (March 28, 1951 in Helsinki – July 13, 1995 in Vaasa) was an award-winning Finnish actor and a musician. He rose to international fame with his roles in both Aki Kaurismäki's and Mika Kaurismäki's films; particularly being a regular in Aki's films, appearing in 18 of them. He started his career in 1962 as a radio actor at the Finnish state-owned broadcasting company YLE. He performed as an actor during the 70s in many amateur theatres, at the same time that he studied at the Finnish Theatre Academy, where he completed his studies in the year 1977. He was nominated Best Actor by European Film Academy for his role as Rodolfo in La Vie de Boheme and won the Felix at the European Film Awards in 1992. He also starred in Jim Jarmusch's 1991 film Night on Earth. Description above from the Wikipedia article Matti Pellonpää, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Helsinki, Finland
Birthday: March 28, 1951
Deathday: July 13, 1995
Adult: No
Gender: Male
Popularity:
Known For:
Ariel
Overview: A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance Crime
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1988-10-21
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Shadows in Paradise
Overview: Nikander, a rubbish collector and would-be entrepreneur, finds his plans for success dashed when his business associate dies. One evening, he meets Ilona, a down-on-her-luck cashier, in a local supermarket. Falteringly, a bond begins to develop between them.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1986-10-17
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Night on Earth
Overview: An anthology of 5 different cab drivers in 5 American and European cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-12-12
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Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses
Overview: After years of fame and misfortune in Mexico, the members of the Leningrad Cowboys decide to return to their native village. Their former manager Vladimir, who now calls himself Moses lead them on their way home.
Genres: Comedy Adventure Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-02-17
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Leningrad Cowboys Go America
Overview: The Leningrad Cowboys, a group of Siberian musicians, and their manager, travel to America seeking fame and fortune. As they cross the country, trying to get to a wedding in Mexico, they are followed by the village idiot, who wishes to join the band.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1989-03-24
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The Worthless
Overview: Manne, Harri, and Ville Alfa are rootless twenty-somethings in search of purpose for their banal lives. After Manne steals a priceless painting from a group of petty criminals, Manne and Harri flee from the gangsters across Finland, while Ville goes to Paris. On the road they meet Veera, an old girlfriend of Harri's, and try to avoid the gangsters in pursuit.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1982-10-15
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La Vie de Bohème
Overview: Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1992-02-27
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Chaplinesque
Overview: Musical tale of a happy man, whose happiness the Fur King tried to buy.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1993-09-24
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Zombie and the Ghost Train
Overview: Antti "Zombie" Autiomaa does two things well: play the bass guitar and drink. After several months' sleeping on the streets of Istanbul, he returns to Helsinki where he's called into the army but discharged on mental health grounds after adding turpentine to the officers' soup. Zombie lives bleary-eyed in an apartment off his parents' house where his lonely, unemployed father suffers from heart disease. His girl-friend Marjo has taken up with a hairdresser but comes back to Zombie. His friend Harri hires him as a roadie for his band "Harry and the Mulefukkers" then gives him a chance as a bass player. He has his girl and he has a gig, but can Zombie put the bottle down?
Genres: Drama Comedy Music
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1991-07-26
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Paper Star
Overview: Anna Kelanen is an ex-model, who just has been released from prison. She thinks back on her life, when she was a rather successful model, and on the things that went wrong.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1989-09-29
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Crime and Punishment
Overview: In Helsinki, an ex-law student turned slaughterhouse worker commits a senseless crime that catapults him into loneliness. Only a woman who accidentally arrived at the crime scene wants to follow him, but guilt and the tightening net of the police throw a shadow over their desperate love affair.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1983-12-02
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Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana
Overview: Two Finnish men agree to drive an Estonian woman and a Russian woman to a harbor.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1994-01-14
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Päätepysäkki
Overview:
Genres: Comedy TV Movie
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1986-10-17
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Sutki
Overview: Finnish comedy.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1993-11-10
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Dirty Hands
Overview: A political drama set in the fictional country of Illyria between 1943 and 1945, the story is about the assassination of a leading politician. The country, an ally of Nazi Germany, is on the verge of being annexed to the Eastern Bloc. Kaurismäki's TV adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's play Les Mains Sales (Dirty Hands) tells the story of Hugo (Matti Pellonpää) who has just been released from prison. Before going to prison, he has worked as a journalist at his party's newspaper. This timid journalist, who uses the pseudonym Raskolnikov, wants to advance in his career and gets his chance when Hoederer (Sulevi Peltola), the leader of the party, has to be eliminated.
Genres: TV Movie Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1989-10-05
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Kauhea murhamies Lalli
Overview: TV play about the legend of Lalli.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1981-05-08
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Dolly and Her Lover
Overview: Detective Karisto releases Auno 'Räpsy' Pirilä from prison, who in turn has to calve his childhood friend Börje from criminal activities. Alcoholic Dolly takes Räpsy to live in Kallio, Helsinki, and hopes to move to Paris with her in the spring.
Genres: Comedy Romance Crime
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1990-02-02
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Onnentyttö
Overview:
Genres: TV Movie
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1983-04-21
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Päivä ennen
Overview:
Genres: TV Movie
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1978-10-24
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Cha Cha Cha
Overview: A lawyer pays a visit to Matti Ojanperä, a bum living under a bridge in the Helsinki harbour, to inform him that he is about to inherit an American aunt of his. The sum 1,000,000 Fmk would be his, if only he meets the qualifications set by his aunt. He must show that he is capable of 'living properly' and possessing a 'respectable occupation and a family he can support'. Otherwise the money would go to a foundation the chairman of which the lawyer himself happens to be!
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1989-01-20
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Where Is Musette?
Overview: Documentary filmed on-set during the making of Aki Kaurismaki's "La vie de Boheme"
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1992-01-01
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Se minun töistäni - Matti Pellonpää
Overview: Matti Pellonpää (1951-1995) was one of the most talented Finnish actors of his generation. In Eero Tuomikoski's documentary, we meet Pellonpää in 1984, after Kaurismäki's Arvottomat film, but before his actual big breakthrough.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1984-09-13
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Kuningas lähtee Ranskaan
Overview: A new ice age is coming to England. All energy sources have been depleted and despair is taking over the earth. The young king decides to use his last trump card before his power collapses and anarchy reigns over the island kingdom.
Genres: Drama Comedy History
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1986-09-19
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Moonlight Sonata II: The Street Sweepers
Overview:
Genres: Horror Comedy
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1991-03-08
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Viimeiset rotannahat
Overview: Anssi Mänttäri’s low-budget movies with their intimate content have become classics. In this black comedy that takes place in Helsinki in summer the main character (played by Mänttäri himself) jumps from one bar and bed to the next. Especially vulgar black humour.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1985-01-18
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Iron Horsemen
Overview: Bad Trip, a biker who has been freshly inducted into a gang, flees from them after stealing one of their bikes.
Genres: Action Thriller Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-01-27
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Calamari Union
Overview: A group of men all called Frank—except for one named Pekka—have had enough of life in their working-class neighborhood, so they set off for a better existence in the magical seaside district of Eira. But the way is long, and the group face many hurdles including stray dogs and defunct streetlights.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1985-02-08
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The Boys
Overview: When Continuation War started in Summer 1941, German soldiers arrived to Oulu. With their charm they conquered women and town boys. Finnish boys communicated with them on many levels: had trades, worked as interpreters, rotated business, spied on German love adventures and fought with each other about the favor of soldiers. In autumn 1944, the war was ending. Germans left Oulu by leaving behind fragile relationships, bastard kids and unfinished businesses. The most shocking of all was the faith of young Jake...
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1962-11-02
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Akseli and Elina
Overview: A former Red Rebellion leader returns home after being imprisoned for his participation in the Finnish Civil War, but soon finds out that wartime mindsets still linger in the heads of people.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1970-12-04
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Kesän maku
Overview: Liisa, a young nurse returns to a remote island where she has spent the summer leaves in her youth. She soon gets to know some of the regular residents on the island, Pekka and Paula. During the summer party the underlying tensions mount.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1975-10-17
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Antti Puuhaara
Overview: In 17th-century Pohjola, young Antti Puuhaara is looking for himself, because he has grown up with no knowledge of his childhood. Two actors, the tragedian and the comedian, who were banished from Tsarist Russia to Karelia, had predicted to the crooked merchant Markki Bohattov that Antti's fate would become intertwined with his own. When Antti falls in love with Bohattov's daughter Darja, the father has to arrange for her to marry the tar merchant Arho Mustahatu.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1976-11-05
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Viimeinen savotta
Overview: Follows the life of a pauper child Vike Nilonpoika from the early 1900's to the 1960s. During this time he works as a lumberjack in Lapland after running away from the despotic master. He soon becomes familiar with hookers, card hustlers and alcohol.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1977-11-04
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Ruskan jälkeen
Overview: It follows a year in the life of a family in the North-Eastern part of Finland. From the gloomy days of winter to the Mid Summer wedding festivities.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1979-08-31
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Pedon merkki
Overview: Set during the Second World War in the Finnish war zone.
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1981-09-25
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Regina ja miehet
Overview:
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1983-02-18
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Huhtikuu on kuukausista julmin
Overview:
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1983-10-21
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The Clan: Tale of the Frogs
Overview: Young Alex Sammakko has seen his brothers defy the law in a series of deeds that first land them in jail, and then, after they escape and return to their rural home, land them back in the lap of their locally notorious family. Alex wants nothing to do with them. He is in love with Mirja, whose family is not that different from the Sammakko's, but who shares Alex's viewpoints and feelings. Not helping matters is a police department convinced that all Sammakkos are bad, and the family itself, pressuring Alex to follow in their murky footsteps.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1984-11-30
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Kello
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1984-03-02
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Aikalainen
Overview: A Finnish adaptation of Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1984-03-16
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Rakkauselokuva
Overview:
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1984-11-16
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Ylösnousemus
Overview: A man fakes his own suicide in order to see how his close ones react.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1985-09-27
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Näkemiin, hyvästi
Overview: When a new man appears in Tuula's life, Jorma does not tolerate the idea and begins to yearn back for his ex-wife. They drift into a situation where both face a big choice that has far-reaching implications for the rest of their lives.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1986-12-19
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Hamlet Goes Business
Overview: When Hamlet discovers his father’s deceased body, he finds himself pulled into a power struggle as his scheming uncle attempts to secure a monopoly on the Scandinavian rubber duck industry. Will Hamlet avenge his father? Will he become the king of rubber ducks? Does any of it really matter?
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1987-08-21
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Kiljusen herrasväen uudet seikkailut
Overview: That Kiljunen familys sets out find their two missing family members, who have been sent to Tampere by the Matalamäki boarding school for retraining due to poor school performance.
Genres: Comedy Family Music
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1990-12-21
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The Last Border
Overview: One man's quest for revenge in a post-apocalyptic world
Genres: Science Fiction Action
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1993-08-20
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Bohemian Eyes
Overview: Documentary about the life of Finnish actor Matti Pellonpää.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 2011-01-26
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The Liar
Overview: Talkative, hyperactive young drifter Ville Alfa goes around Helsinki, basically trying to borrow money from friends and strangers by means of an incessant delivery of quirky and snappy quasi-intellectual lines and fabricated excuses.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1981-02-27
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Rocky VI
Overview: Not to be confused with any of the sequels to Sylvester Stallone's classic Oscar-winning Rocky, this short film from Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki is actually meant as a parody of the late Cold War-era Rocky IV, which saw Stallone's character taking on a juiced-up Russian fighter played by Dolph Lundgren. In this 1986 send-up, Rock'y, played by Silu Seppala, goes head to head with Soviet Igor (Sakari Kuosmanen) and loses.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1986-06-14
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Marked
Overview: Irma Auer (Satu Silvo) is a former call-girl, trying to distance herself from the past. In a séance she is told to be 'marked for death', and is afterward threatened by her former pimp and abandoned by her groom, as he learns about her past. Irma attempts to commit suicide, and resurrects at the city morgue after being pronounced dead. After the incident, she wanders out direction-less, being pursued by the doctor who treated her and also a strange, tall man.
Genres: Fantasy Horror Drama Mystery TV Movie
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1984-09-15
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Jackpot 2
Overview: Three young people, two boys and a girl, meet on a Friday evening in an urban post-disaster setting which has brought Helsinki to ruins. The boys' sole purpose of life is to play a Flip-Flop pinball machine.
Genres: Comedy Science Fiction
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1982-03-05
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Pieniä valheita
Overview: The relationship between a priest's wife and the renovator crackles with passion. While the rectory terrace is being restored, there is a triangular drama at the fore: a priest, a priest’s wife and a renovator.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1994-05-07
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Bluesia Pieksämäen asemalla
Overview: Juice Leskinen & Grand Slam live set recorded in 1988.
Genres: Music Documentary
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 2013-03-06
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Kumma juttu
Overview: A group of kids goes on an adventure to help their scientist friend.
Genres: Fantasy Family
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1989-10-13
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Finnish Frustrations
Overview: Dances are ending. Last chance for women and men to find someone. Special prize at Tampere Film Festival 1970.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 1969-04-20
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Some of You May Have Heard of Me
Overview: Kari Uusitalo, a regular visitor to the Tampere Film Festival, delved into the state of Finnish cinema of the mid-1980s, while getting to know the new generation of filmmakers in Anssi Mänttäri's comedic short documentary. Deep in Reppufilmi's cellar, in addition to director Mänttäri, we meet Pirkko Hämäläinen, Markku Toikka, Matti Pellonpää, Paavo Piskonen and Pauli Pentti. The film poses the question: why is a person, an artist, willing to risk everything over and over again?
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 2025-03-06
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