Finnish director Dome Kalkoski is ready to slow things down with “Kabalab.”
“Tolkien” – After the 2019 biopic of “Tom of Finland”, author of “The Lord of the Rings”, Jared Harris from the series “The Beast Muts Die”, and “The Beast Must Die” from the original “Little Siberia” on Finnish Netflix, Karukoski’s next film is a simple love story.
“One of the reasons I felt so strongly about the book (by Emimi Leah Shehormin) was because it was so easy. It’s just two people talking and I fall in love,” Kalkoski told Variety in Helsinki.
“This is an adult love story. They’re in their 40s and they’re discussing divorce, children, sex, the sacrifices they made. I was 48 and that hit me.”
“Hippo Love” – debuts an exclusive first look still before the bow in a Finnish film incident – two grief strangers warm up to each other at a Greek wedding party. Touko (Aku Sipola) is still technically married. Eevis (Pihla viitala) is about to separate from her partner. However, Toko’s wife, the famous pop star, is also present.
“You go out to the wedding and celebrate someone else’s ‘pure love’, and you are in the midst of your own divorce and your own pain. This juxtaposition was very intriguing to me,” says Kalkoski.
“I think that’s a good timing for such a film. Personally, I’ve had three burnouts. I’m not in the top 10 director’s burnout, but I’m there.”
He adds: “When you’re inside the studio system, you can feel like the movie is being made by an assistant director. Everything is very big. You’re just trying to survive the production. It’s all about the next car chase and the next explosion.
Sipola and Viitala joined musician Jenni Vartiainen in their first role on screen, but “everything” of the film produced by Yellow Film and TV’s Marko Talri. “It’s about their little gestures, their little moments. Then the story becomes bigger, more intriguing and human. But it’s still the two of them looking at each other.”
Viitala has already announced an audiobook version of Sjöholmin’s novel. “At AKU, we actually chatted about parting with our kids after the party. He was much more sensitive than I ever guessed. When I got the book, he was my first call. “I think this is for you.”
“It’s about people engage in conflict and falling in love. It’s a poem that’s easily forgotten when you’re doing a large production. Usually, when I’m watching rough cuts, I think of a few different ways to commit suicide. But this is a film that feels like a hug.”
And what’s the title?
“When hippos fall in love, they go into the water and women suffocate. In a tense marriage or partnership, you feel suffocated, so how do you find freedom and fun? These two bump into emotional walls.
“We’re always told, ‘You have to find your person.’ After that, you should be with that person. If you fail, you learn that disappointment and what others have for us.
He has something to do with his character, he says.
“I’m not saying this movie is like a treatment, but it was certainly therapeutic.”
Already developing films in the UK, setting in the world of football, and centering around a small number of agents trying to survive, Kalkoski has no intention of leaving Finland any time soon. Despite the planned cuts in the cultural budget he spoke of.
“I want to be close to my child. My son is 11 and my daughter is 6. It will take a year or two with my son. Then I’ll be lucky if he answers my phone,” he laughs, admitting that he also writes stories about his father.
“Tolkien grew up without a father. I met my encounter when I was 14. I’m always trying to find something I can relate to. But this is the most personal thing I’ve ever written.”
“We will see how it comes with all the reductions and difficulties we face as an industry, but when Guillermo del Toro admitted he had written about 17 scripts that he had never been funded, I was very relieved.
“Kabalab”
Yellow Film / Ant Tiratinen
