20/11/2018 - Veiko Õunpuu's fifth feature, filmed in Norway and northern Finland last year, is a modern Nordic western starring Pääru Oja in the lead role

Rupi (Pääru Oja), a young Lapp man, estranged from his family of reindeer herders, just wants to save up some cash to leave his remote mining village. To that end, he is willing to toil away at the mine and traffic illegal pills. Meanwhile, he secretly falls in love with his friend's girlfriend, Ritta (Laura Birn), who also attracts the attention of the mine's fearsome owner, nicknamed The Fisherman. This is the plot of Veiko Õunpuu's new feature, The Last Ones [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Veiko Õunpuu
film profile], written in tandem with Finnish screenwriters Eero Tammi and Heikki Huttu-Hiltunen.

The talented Saaremaa-born director is best known for 2007’s Autumn Ball [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which won the Horizon Award at Venice, and 2010’s The Temptation of St. Tony [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], screened at Sundance and Estonia's Oscars bid in 2011. Besides the leads Pääru Oja (Mihkel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pääru Oja
film profile], 1944 [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and Laura Birn (Bayoneta [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], East of Finland), the main cast also includes veteran thesp Tommi Korpela (Happier Times, The Grump [+see also:
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film profile], Wonderland [+see also:
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film profile]), and film and theatre actor Elmer Bäck (Eisenstein in Guanajuato [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Peter Greenaway
film profile], Where Once We Walked). Notable crew members include Estonian director of photography Sten-Johan Lill (The Days That Confused [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Triin Ruumet
film profile]), Finnish production designer Otso Linnalaakso (East of Finland, The Sixth Time), Estonian costume designer Jaanus Vahtra (Põrgu Jaan, November [+see also:
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interview: Rea Lest
film profile]) and Dutch editor Xander Nijsten (My Foolish Heart [+see also:
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film profile], Light as Feathers [+see also:
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interview: Rosanne Pel
film profile]), who is continuing the work begun by the late Wouter van Luijn, who passed away tragically in Spain this summer. 

Produced by Ellen Havenith for PRPL (Netherlands), Misha Jaari and Mark Lwoff for Bufo (Finland), and Katrin Kissa and Elina Litvinova for Homeless Bob Productions (Estonia), the project has benefited from financial support from a number of public bodies – namely, the Eurimages European co-production fund, the Estonian Film Institute, the Estonian Cultural Endowment, the Creative Europe MEDIA programme, Finnish public broadcaster YLE, the Lapland Film Commission and the Netherlands Film Fund. The overall production budget amounted to €1.6 million.

The Last Ones will be distributed by Helsinki-based B-Plan Distribution (a division of Bufo) and will be ready for a domestic theatrical release in autumn 2019.