Finnish director Aku Louhimies' Frozen City won a top number of eight nominations for the Jussis - Finland's national film awards - as the Filmiaura Association of local film professionals announced its choice of films considered for the prizes, which will be handed out at a gala in Helsinki on Feb 4.

Louhimies' feature, which took three prizes in Karlovy Vary and won the Best Director prize at Ghent, was produced by Markus Selin's Solar Films, which has delivered the last four years of local blockbusters in Finland. It was nominated for, among others, Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actor (Janne Virtanen) and Actress (Susanne Anteroinen). The film follows a character from Louhimies' television series, Fragments - a taxi driver, who has lost his family, and is convicted of a killing he does not remember he has committed because he was drunk.

Concluding his losers' trilogy, Aki Kaurismaki's Lights in the Dusk, which competed for the Golden Palm at Cannes, came in second with six nominations, including Best Film and Director. His brother, Mika Kaurismaki's Brasileirinho - his second film on Brazilian music - is up for Best Documentary.

In the Best Film and Best Director categories, Frozen City and Lights in the Dusk are up against Jouko Aaltonen's Revolution, which received four nominations - the same number as Janne Kuusi's Prince of Soap and Juha Koiranen's Rock'n'Roll Never Dies, screening in competition at Goteborg and Rotterdam.

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