With the title After the Shipwreck. The Cinema of Aki Kaurismäki (1983-1996), The Museo Reina Sofia proposed in 2014 the first retrospective of the Finnish filmmaker in a museum of modern art. This interview, written as a conversation, reveals some of the keys to his films: the existential desolation mixed with parody and black humour, gritty realism revised by quotes and fable, an ethic but nihilistic gaze to society and above all, unwavering belief in cinema as a space of freedom.