Renowned Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, winner of Un Certain Regard in Cannes for The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki and Cannes Grand Prix for Compartment No. 6. , returns to Karlovy Vary. At this year’s KVIFF, he presents three black-and-white shorts screened together under the title Silent Trilogy.
“I love silent movies and I watch them often,” the director said during a discussion with the audience at the Čas Cinema. The first short, Scrap-Mattila and the Beautiful Woman, was shot in 2012 on an old winding-up 16mm camera from the 1950s. The 2017 farce The Moonshiners is a remake of the first Finnish feature film from 1907. The third short, A Planet Far Away, Kuosmanen made last year. “I wanted to make a space movie,” he remarked about the story of a lighthouse keeper who builds a rocket to reunite with her brother.
At the discussion, he revealed that the initial script for A Planet Far Away was different. “But when we finished the shooting, we realised the film didn’t make sense. So we rewrote the script. In the film, the actors say other words than those in the subtitles,” the director hinted at the advantages of silent film. While making the Silent Trilogy, he also overcame the fear that no one else shared his taste. “I realised that others indeed can enjoy things that I find amusing,” said Kuosmanen.
