Oskari Sipola director of August (Elokuu)

At the moment Sipola is occupied with TV- directing, bunch of starting projects, and hopefully a new feature length movie in the future. But where did this journey start in the first place? Oskari himself sets the spotlight to his early childhood years and his father, a video enthusiast who took charge in filming his children and later on passing the camera to the new generation.

My dad was a video enthusiast and being in front of the camera turned to be quite a natural state in our family from the early ages. Instead of filming just the ordinary birthday/first step stuff, my dad took the interest in more entertaining material, teaching us to make our own plays and movies when we grew old enough to walk and talk. This early connection with the film world evolved during the school years, when Oskari’s interest in movies grew from little boys´ war fantasies to young men´s relation drama.

Maybe I got stuck with the drama section but for me it feels the easiest area to access. August was in fact an idea that started already during the high school years. Oskari found lots of authentic crew for making movies aimed for younger audiences. Lots of colleagues from my films have been found during my studies and lots of projects I have had relate to my youth time´s filming hobby, Oskari explains.

He also likes to collaborate with young assistants, giving a chance for new names to take a slice from the real working world. I myself had a great chance to assist known director Aku Louhimies before and learned my share.

Another example of finding new names is Oskari´s catch for August´s cast, Lina Turkama, a non-professional actor handpicked from a bar line and forwarded straight to one of the main roles in the movie.

These kind of details can give August the edge that is needed to cut to the chase when working with a film that aims to be coming-of-age drama, oriented to extremely critical young audience. Sipola states that the biggest problem for a movie aimed to this category could be the common misunderstanding between a movie where the main characters are just young and the movies that are actually meant for covering young people´s lives with all of their ups and downs. This misunderstanding can also cause other problems, especially with movie festivals selecting the films for programing. In Estonia, August was chosen to represent youth drama in PÖFF Just films section, succesfully placing it to the right category. So at least this time the trap was avoided.

PÖFF is not the only festival showing interest towards Sipola´s work and after lots of fruitful visits around Europe there is a bit time to rest. Promo tours are a completely new thing for me and even with all the interesting feedback its good to be home with slower project editing period going on. That´s how the director´s world turns: different phases and no certain knowledge about tomorrow.

In the meantime, Oskari has other activities and errands running in Finland, so he can’t visit PÖFF. During PÖFF Sipola can be found in Oulu International children´s and youth film festival.

By Arttu Karvonen