When the Russian writer Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize on 10th December 1970, the Norwegian film adaptation of his novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" was to be screened simultaneously in Scandinavian capitals. However, it did not run in Helsinki. It was banned there – despite the fact that the director came from Finland. Casper Wrede (1929-1998), an aristocrat of German descent, was born in Vyberg, which belonged to the Soviet Union since World War II. Wrede studied at the "Old Vic" drama school in London, where he worked with Laurence Olivier and Tom Courtney, who starred as "Denisovich", and with Sean Connery, protagonist in his film "The Terrorists" (1975). Wrede was a theatre man, his relationship to cinema was somewhat unhappy. He speaks of it here in a long interview. Friends and companions, including Jörn Donner, illuminate the background to the ban of his magnum opus in his Finnish homeland.