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Cinema Graphic picture of a gay pioneer
MARIA DUARTE recommends a no-holds-barred biopic of artist Tom of Finland

Tom of Finland (18)
Directed by Dome Karukoski
4/5

FINNISH artist Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, was one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Western gay culture and film-maker Dome Karukoski brings his colourful and impressive life story to the big screen in this thought-provoking and gripping biopic.

It outlines his journey from advertising executive to a leading figure in, and emblem of, the gay movement.
Pekka Strang’s powerful and understated performance as Laaksonen does justice to a man ahead of his time who, in the late 1950s and 1960s, stood up to a world which would not allow him to be a homosexual man with gay fantasies.

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