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Jussi Rantamäki

Producers on the Move 2013 - Finland

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- "I’m proud that we stuck to that gut feeling"

In 2010, Finnish producer Jussi Rantamäki couldn’t have wished for a better start: his first film, Finnish director Hannaleena Hauru’s 14-minute short, Whispering In a Friend’s Mouth, was selected for Berlin’s Generation programme, later for the Critics’ Week in Cannes – and his second, Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s The Painting Sellers, won first prize in Cannes’ Cinefondation, and was nominated for four Jussis, Finland’s national film prize. Since 2008 Rantamäki – who also has a BA in culture management – has been attached to the Helsinki-based Aamu production company.

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While his first feature has recently been released in Finland - Finnish veteran director Matti IjäsThings We Do for Love - as well as Finnish directors J-P Passi-Jarkko T Laine’s The Driver (Passi directed The Punk Syndrome [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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, awarded a Jussi for last year’s Best Finnish Documentary) – he is currently in production with Finnish director Mikko Myllylahti’s short debut, Handbag (his student film was shown in Locarno), and The Boxer, a feature by Kuosmanen (The Painting Sellers), scripted by Myllylahti about a boxer’s championship match, where he is being humiliated, still wins back his normal life.

What made you decide to become a producer – you have also worked as assistant director?
Rantamäki: When working as a freelancer in different jobs I realised that my motivation and enthusiasm go hand in hand with my commitment to the project. If I believed in the content and felt that this story had to be told, everything became easy and inspiring – I realised that even traffic control in Finland in the middle of the winter was ok. The best thing about being a producer is that you choose the project, you are attached from the very beginning to the very end, and you choose people to work with.

What do you demand from a script for it to interest you to make a film from it?
The script should have a peculiar view on the world. The observation a writer is aiming to achieve can be very small if it is honest and somehow unique, and hopefully change you way of seeing everyday life. You can develop scripts in many ways, but having your own tone and view are main ingredients. The best guideline: tell the truth and try not to be boring.

Which of your productions so far are you most happy with – and why?
The Painting Sellers. We developed the film for a long time, without being sure what it was about the content we were drawn to. We were very keen about the characters and the world, but in fact we didn’t realise what the film was about, until we were editing it. I’m proud that we stuck to that ‘gut feeling’ - the film is good on so many levels. 

How do you see the role of the producer – how do you work with your directors?
I usually work in long-term relationships. With most of the directors I have started with short films, then moved on to longer and more demanding formats. Film production is a teamwork. No matter how talented you are, only the talent which is "put on the mutual table" is the talent that counts. The producer's main mission is to build up a team and create an atmosphere and a setting, which make it easy for the talents to work together. As a producer I concentrate on development. When we are developing the content, it always shapes the form. Every filmmaking process has to be custom-made for this single project.

Anything you are particularly good at – and anything certainly not?
I am good at working with talent and getting the most out of it, whereas I have to develop my skills of structuring a project. I always start to develop it from the beginning of the story, not the end – sometimes I am not sure what the result will be: comedy, drama, romance, even after a lot of efforts. But I prefer to dig deep into it, explore the  exciting details, before I decide where it’s going and how, hoping to create something unique, even a masterpiece. Admittedly, it is harder to sell. 

Everybody wants to watch Finnish films in Finland – what is going on up there?
Finnish cinema has developed fast recently, and we see a lot of good films that can well compete with American fare, especially comedies and children’s films. Every year 4-6 titles sell more than 200,000 tickets in the cinemas, which is great since we are only a five million population. But there is also much polarization - some films are totally forgotten.

  

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