April is the Cruelest of Months is a 1983 film directed by Suvi-Marja Korvenheimo, also known as Anssi Mänttäri, and the final part of the Korvenheimo trilogy. It was named after the first verse of T. S. Eliot's poem series The Waste Land. The film, shot in ten days, is a satire on the candles of Finnish culture.

Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, "Seven Brothers/Seitsemän veljestä". Although Kivi was among the very earliest authors of prose and lyrics in Finnish language, he is still considered one of the greatest of them all.

Nikander, a rubbish collector and would-be entrepreneur, finds his plans for success dashed when his business associate dies. One evening, he meets Ilona, a down-on-her-luck cashier, in a local supermarket. Falteringly, a bond begins to develop between them.

Outcast by his co-workers and living alone, Koistinen is a security guard who works the night shift in a luxury shopping mall in Helsinki. But when icy blonde Mirja approaches him, the lonely Koistinen falls helplessly for her, unaware she is manipulating him for her criminal boyfriend.