After studying at the Helsinki Higher School of Dramatic Art, Kati Outinen left in 1984 and worked for ten years at the Kom Theatre. She actually started appearing in movies in 1980 (Täältä tullaan, elämä! by Tapio Suominen).

She is most well known for her work with Aki Kaurismaki, for whom she has made seven films, spanning the late 80s to the present day. Her beautifully deadpan features perfectly complement the nothingness that pervades the cinematic world of Kaurismaki.

Outinen has also worked with other Finnish directors like Timo Linnasalo but hitherto has seldom appeared in movies outside her native Finland, and when has they have been secondary roles such as History is Made At Night by Ilka Jarvilaturi in 1999.

Whatever her role in a Kaurismaki movie, whether that of the heroine in The Match Factory Girl, or as the hitch-hiker in Shadows in Paradise, or indeed that of the abused woman in Juha, Kati Outinen perfectly portrays the misery of self isolation which is at the core of every Kaurismaki movie.

Her star is now rising across Europe, signalled by her winning the Prix d'interprétation féminine du Festival de Cannes in 2002 for her performance as a Salvation Army worker in The Man Without a Past.

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