Although the two countries are located very far away from each other, there is a special link between Finland and Japan. After living in Finland for a few years, I have come to think of the Finns as the "Japanese of Europe" for their culture that seems alien to the rest of the West, a very reserved and homogeneous society that foreigners find nearly impossible to enter. In Japan, Finnish exports like the designers Ittala and Marimekko and the Moomins children's books have proved huge successes. The Japanese film KAMOME DINER celebrates this kinship by offering native audiences a fish-out-of-water film about Japanese women in Helsinki, but on universal themes that could appeal to viewers in Finland and beyond. The film is director Naoko Ogigami's adaptation of a novel by Yôko Mure. As the film opens, we meet Sachie (Satomi Kobayashi), who has inexplicably decided to move from Japan to Finland and open a bare-bones eatery. That she has decided to serve rice balls (onigiri), a Japanese dish virtually unknown to the rest of the world, instead of the usual sushi or tempura only makes the premise all the more absurdist. After a month, she finally gets her first customer, but it is only a local fan of Japanese culture (Jarkko Niemi) who, by long tradition, gets his coffee for free everyday since he was its first patron, and he never brings any friends. When she meets with Midori (Hai…

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