Girl Picture (2022) premiered at Sundance in January to great acclaim, securing the coveted Audience Award at the festival’s close. A tender coming-of-age tale, Girl Picture follows three young Finnish women as they work to discover and define themselves. Over three Fridays, Mimmi (Aamu Milonoff), Emma (Linnea Lineo), and Rönkkö (Eleonoora Kauhanen) draw together and pull apart. After seeing it at Sundance, I wrote that I was “utterly enchanted,’ and my affection for Girl Picture has only grown.
Alli Haapasalo directed Girl Picture from a script by Ilana Authy and Daniela Hacohen. Haapasalo approaches the story with a warmth that secures the film’s spot as a minor miracle of teenage character study. We hopped on Zoom to talk about her directorial style, the process of Girl Picture’s inception, and the undeniable power of just letting love guide your filmmaking.
The following interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
[Devin] How did you sign on to direct Girl Picture?
[Alli] I was still living in New York after finishing my MFA. The writers Ilana Authy and Daniela Hacohen contacted me in 2014. They sent along a treatment of Girl Picture because they didn’t want to proceed if they didn’t have a director attached. I immediately saw from the treatment that this was something I wanted to actually be involved in. I could already see that they were doing something unique.
So I said yes. They started working on the first draft, and completed that in 2015. From there on even though I didn’t write any of it, we worked together. It was like the three girls in the script, working together and trying to get it done. I was commenting and brainstorming, having lots and lots of conversations with them. Then we were looking for a producer together, which took quite a while but then we got a production company on board.
Expanding on some of that, I know that most of your projects you write and direct. Is it a challenge to come in and direct something that isn’t your story?
I think it might be a challenge to come in at a very late stage. I know that often, directors come in at a late stage, and just think they’ll ‘make it better.’. They change things and maybe not necessarily for the better. That likely wouldn’t be such a fruitful process. But to me, this was actually really wonderful because I was involved from the get-go. I was able to feel, in a positive way, ownership. Not for the script, but for the whole world that we were talking about together.I understand the characters, I don’t have to come in from the outside and feel like I have to put my stamp on it as a director.
I also have to admit, I much prefer this to writing myself. Writing is tedious. Extremely difficult and so time-consuming. Not writing Girl Picture meant I was able to direct other features, while they were still working on the script to make it perfect for production. That was a dream scenario for me. Plus, Ilana and Daniela are magnificent writers, so that was wonderful.
Speaking of their writing, these three central, young women they craft, and the actresses that subsequently brought them to life, are all incredible. How did you shape the characters with the actresses?
That was wonderful, too, because I think I must have already seen in the auditions that these three actors were not just going to come in and sort of take the pages, do a nice job with it and go home. Instead, they were very passionate about the content of the film, and they were very passionate about getting it right. We talked so much. Aamu, who plays Mimmi, is very intelligent, very creative, and a very deep human being. She had a lot of criticism for certain things that may have passed the eyes of myself and the writers that were good, specific corrections on facets of the script. Minor details in a scene
An example. There’s a moment when Mimmi and Rönkkö talk in the script about sexuality. Mimmi asks Rönkkö if she’s queer at all, and Rönkkö originally responded “No, I’m depressingly hetero.” Aamu came to us and pointed out that the phrasing was kind of negative, that it suggested that Rönkkö was thinking about being gay as fashionable. It was a bit of us, the older generation, trying to sound cool here. So Aamu suggested that she say something more like “I’m totally hetero.” It’s a small detail, but was a very important one for the specificity and integrity of these characters.
All of them were involved like that. It was really, really nice and beautiful to sort of get things right with them. It also meant it was emotionally true. They weren’t my, you know, youth fact checkers, but were tuned into getting the characters emotionally right so they could believe the characters themselves. They were all really intelligent. It was such a pleasure to work with them.
I’m so glad to hear that. Staying on this line of getting things right, something that strikes me is that this is a movie about, among other things, love and finding pleasure during a coming-of-age story. I feel like so many movies, get it wrong, in terms of it becoming exploitative, or overly cloying. How did you work to make sure that it has this kind of tender, supportive tone?
Oh, that’s a good question. Hm. Well, I would start by saying I think the script loves its characters unconditionally. Even if they’re doing terrible things. The film, the script, the actors, and everybody who was artistically involved loves the characters as they are, which I think is a key point in the sort of political undercurrent of the film. It just doesn’t make judgments of these characters, even if they fail all the time. When they fail each other. When they fail themselves. They can be without perspective, very self-absorbed.
But, they’re also innocent. They’re trying their hardest. Everything’s at stake all the time for them under the enormous pressure every day of being a 17-year-old. As a teenager, you feel like you need to figure your life out today, and if you don’t, you’re doomed. The film is kind of like just embracing them with all these qualities. I think the tenderness and tone come from that, you know? It’s very human. All humans are terrible, but also really beautiful.
From the outside, it seems like a dominant part of that is conveying currents of intimacy between friends and lovers. I’m thinking especially of the moment down by the water where Emma shows Mimmi her dancing and skating. You seem to work tirelessly to foreground the performances in a thoughtful way. Can you walk me through how that scene took shape?
First of all, Girl Picture has a really small plot, if you think about it. If you just put the plot in front of you, it’s kind of like, ‘Huh, what happens in this film?’ It’s a very character-driven story. Therefore, I knew that if I didn’t get the emotions, right, and if I didn’t get the characters to feel specific, everything would just die. So, I think the emotional truth and intimacy in those moments, was always something I knew had to be right.
Of course, that’s not something you can force. You can’t ask for the actors to deliver that, like, ‘In this scene, please be intimate and emotionally truthful. As a result, it is definitely something that happened on sets between these characters. I think that the way the actors prepped for the roles, making sure they trusted each other, is a big part of how the magic happened.
I was able to create the world and space for that to happen for them. But they are the ones who created what you see. It was a really good collaboration in that sense. You know, I would be in trouble if they didn’t deliver, but they did. I think there’s just so much subtlety in just the way they look at each other. Specifically talking about Aamu and Linnea now because you refer to that scene, which is a big favorite of mine. I think that they just do such a nice job. It’s so warm, and full of, as you put it, that emotional truth and intimacy because they found it.
Sticking with the waterfront scene if you’ll indulge me with a nerdy filmmaking question, a key part of the aesthetic there is a wash of red light. That fits into a trend in Girl Picture where you seem quite tuned into the lightning design and how you help these characters glow, both literally and figuratively. Do you see emotive lightning as a major aspect of your style?
I think light is the number one, mood, tone, and atmosphere creator. There’s a book about cinematography called Painting with Light, and I think that’s what film is. You’re really painting with light. My director of photography Jarmo Kiuri is magnificent with lighting. He also had a really excellent gaffer, Matleena Kuusela, who is one of only a couple of female gaffers in Finland. They collaborated on this beautiful lighting plan. To meet you in the nerdy category, it was amazing to see how they did it.
So, the film happens over these Fridays that begin with the same kind of daylight tones of the Finnish winter, which has a very specific feel. The winter light is cold and has this magenta feel. Then when it starts to go toward the evening, all the colors deepen and become velvety. Once we’re into the night, when the girls go toward the clubs and the laser tag, everything becomes intense. Really deep. Even neon, and that kind of thing. The emotional impact is amplified. We repeated that same pattern every single Friday.
I love that.
I love being able to talk about it!
Looking back a few of months, Girl Picture won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. What is it like to experience such a rapturous response to one of your projects?
I haven’t even been able to put it into words really. Admittedly, I never ever thought this film would travel. I thought that it would just be a small little film here in Finland. You always hope for more, but I imagined it would stay local and maybe find a larger teenage audience. Funny enough, I didn’t even know that the Finish Film Foundation had submitted it to Sundance for consideration. I was just in awe when they accepted the film. Doubly so when it won the Audience Award. The validation that Sundance gives to the film has obviously been everything because it’s opened, all the doors. That would only happen with Sundance, and then the Audience Award, even if the film is exactly the same. I think Sundance is doing a very deliberate, amazing job to diversify film.
It is also, even more so in my mind, validation for the title and what it represents. I mean, it’s a film that’s titled Girl Picture. It’s about three girls on three Fridays, and like we already concluded, not too much happens. I’m proud of that. I love the fact that we were able to pull off a film that doesn’t have to have murder or drug wars or something over-the-top for it to be a relevant story about these three girls’ lives. They’re just figuring out their teenage problems, and their girl identities. I think that validation, now that this film is being taken seriously, is beautiful. It’s not like this type of story is usually considered hardcore Film Art, but we have welcomed into this grand cinematic arena all the same.
One final question pushing out from that thought. Now that more people are going to get the chance to see Girl Picture, what do you hope audiences walk away from the movie with?
When we were at Sundance it was virtual, so it was hard to gauge reactions and feelings from the people there. When we won the Audience Award, it of course told us that people were relating to Girl Picture. I started to read audience responses and reviews, and what was repeated throughout was that people had emotional responses to feeling seen, especially women and queer folks. That was a huge thing for us while we were making it, and I am grateful those first audiences were able to feel that. I really hope that the rest of the audience, no matter how anyone identifies, can find that while watching. I want them to live in this world where no one shames the characters. They just live their lives freely. I want that for everyone.
You know, on my editing room wall, I had this paper where I had written to myself a note with three words; love, heart, warmth. So many filmmakers, including myself, are worried about being sentimental. You know? It’s like you have to be cynical to be cool. Sarcastic is cool. Ironic is cool. The note was my reminder that Girl Picture could just be human, warm, and good. We need good things. For God’s sake, we need them right now! So, I hope people can walk away from Girl Picture starting conversations about acceptance but also with a true feel-good experience.
‘Girl Picture’ opens August 12th in New York City and Los Angeles.
Devin McGrath-Conwell holds a B.A. in Film / English from Middlebury College and is currently pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting from Emerson College. His obsessions include all things horror, David Lynch, the darkest of satires, and Billy Joel. Devin’s writing has also appeared in publications such as Filmhounds Magazine, Film Cred, Horror Homeroom, and Cinema Scholars.