Dome Karukoski will direct an authorized biopic about influential gay artist Tom of Finland, Helsinki-filmi said Monday from the Toronto International Film Festival.
It marks the first time the Tom of Finland Foundation has approved a film about the artist, whose pornographic images of gay men emphasized a more masculine and physically imposing image of homosexuality than had previously been seen in many depictions.
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His fetishistic scenes of sexuality inspired top designers and artists such as Tom Ford, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Weber, Freddie Mercury and the Village People.
It Karukoski’s first English-language feature. The Finnish filmmaker is currently at Toronto screening his latest picture, “Heart of a Lion.”
Casting on the biopic is expected to be announced in 2014.