An anonymous evaluator: In search of a cinematic perspective

How do you write about a film project that is still in its infancy? How should these still fragile concepts be read and viewed? And how could someone like me, who only discovered television during the coronavirus pandemic, evaluate a draft script for a TV series?

The art of applications

I was rather surprised when I was asked to be a peer reviewer of cinematic applications to the Kone Foundation’s Saari Residence. After all, my own work focuses more on moving images in the world of visual art. As I began to review the applications, I realised that my background was actually a good fit for the job, as a significant number of the applicants were video artists and people working on the fringes of cinematic expression. I even managed to review a script for a new TV series – by simply reading it.

Genres and types

The competition for dwindling audiences and increasingly limited funding between film genres has created countless hierarchies and cliques. From the viewer’s perspective, however, all films, regardless of genre, are just streams of images and sounds that either appeal to them or leave them cold. Personally, I no longer buy into the narrative where only white men do and experience things, while everyone else cheers from the sidelines and gets killed off. In my early experiences with movies and the world, everything was so male-dominated that I assumed that that was just the way things were. Then came the Alien films and a character I could relate to: a woman at the heart of the action! In the fourth film, Ripley returns as a clone and destroys the earlier, failed versions of herself with a flamethrower. She has herself become a stranger – an Alien. I, too, decided that I would rather be an Alien.

POV

In my opinion, regardless of genre, a good filmmaker must above all have their own cinematic Point Of View, or POV. I therefore looked for applicants who were showing the audience something meaningful about the world – something they had seen, experienced or imagined. Often readers are impressed, at least at first glance, by intriguing concepts and contemporary theories, but these are not the same as a cinematic idea. Exploring this idea and its potential for development based on text and film samples is the most challenging element of an evaluator’s work.

A vague outline

A cinematic idea starts out as just an image, a hunch and an intuition that you are willing to follow to the ends of the earth. Trying to grasp the shape of this vague outline always reminds me of two classic Ingmar Bergman anecdotes: Persona originated from a poster that he saw on the underground, and Autumn Sonata was inspired by a mental image of red walls. No one who has seen Autumn Sonata would argue that red walls is the theme of the film. Sometimes, the image that sparked the whole process ends up being cut from the final work. The initial image was needed to get the process moving, as were the personal ‘darlings’ whose demise on the cutting room floor, albeit painful, is a step that a mature author’s ego can endure. Only when the work is finished will you really know what to write about it. But who could pitch a movie idea based on red walls to funders? Whoever the reader may be, they must be able to make out the shape that your vague outline will ultimately take.

Panning for gold

To see the direction that the applicants wanted to pursue, I sifted through their texts and films like someone panning a river for gold. My personal artistic background obviously played a role in what I dismissed after one read and watch and what piqued my interest enough to go back again and again. I felt a strong desire to defend and support the golden nuggets that I picked out from the stream. At the same time, I hope the application process gave a little push further even for the projects which were not selected. It is often the tentative steps taken in the early stages that later turn out to be the biggest and boldest leaps that brought the project to life.

Residency as a personal space and a collective opportunity

As interesting perspectives began to emerge, compiling a multicultural and gender-diverse sample of applicants came naturally. Several high-quality applicants started to stand out from the large international pool. The fact that the Saari Residence is known around the world is wonderful, but I noticed that there were surprisingly few applicants from Finland and would like to see more residency applications from Finland-based artists in the future. A spell at the Saari Residence is a rare opportunity for filmmakers to concentrate on their personal projects without distractions. What I remember most fondly from my own residency are the friendly staff and the beautiful rural surroundings, which enveloped us residents in a warm atmosphere of encouragement and appreciation. We were able to both immerse ourselves in our work and, when we wanted to, engage in meaningful dialogue with other residents. There are artist residencies all over the world, but for me at least the Saari Residence is unique in its attitude of treating artists as a community of equals. Perhaps it is precisely this respite from competition that makes the Saari Residence so magical.