Starting tomorrow, the 26^th Helsinki International Film Festival has received last-minute confirmations from international filmmaker guests.

Tahar Rahim, who stars in THE PAST (Le passé), has confirmed his visit to HIFF. The HIFF audience might know him from Jacques Audiard’s film A Prophet, where he played a young, illiterate man who’s imprisoned for six years. At this year’s festival Rahim shines in one of the leading roles in The Past, a divorce film directed by Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi.

In Farhadi’s subtle direction Ali Mosafa plays Ahmad, who returns from Tehran to Paris at his wife’s request to sign the divorce papers left unfinished four years earlier. Ahmad’s arrival triggers a spiral of revelations and insights, which not only affect the divorcing couple, but also the lives of the wife’s new boyfriend Samir, played by Rahim, and the reconstituted family. There will be an additional screening of The Past on Friday September 27^th at 6pm in Maxim 1, where Rahim will be present. The Past premieres on November 29^th. Rahim will be in Finland from September 26^th to 28^th.

The latest confirmed guests also include Dylan Mohan Gray, the director of the documentary film FIRE IN THE BLOOD. The film tells the baffling story of how western pharmaceutical companies and governments prevent developing countries from receiving inexpensive AIDS medication, causing the unnecessary deaths of tens of millions of people.

Sam Tromans, the producer of WILD BILL, has also confirmed his arrival. Directed by Dexter Fletcher, Wild Bill is a stylish crime drama flavoured with western influences, focusing on a man released from prison who’s trying to be a good father to his sons.