Nordic Film Talks: Aleksi Bardy

Producer Aleksi Bardy, like most people in Finland, grew up loving the Moomins – “I even had an autographed Moomin drawing by Tove Jansson hanging on my wall,” he remembers. Now he reads Moomin stories to his own kids.

When Bardy was a young adult and read Moomins author Tove Jansson’s adult fiction book The Summer Book (Sommarboken), he adored it. Later, when he became a screenwriter and producer, he read it again with an eye to bringing it to the big screen. “I thought: ‘This is too difficult.’ I couldn't dramatise it. It's too fragmented… I didn't even go for the rights because I felt that I don't have the vision. I couldn't make this into a film.”

But his hope of seeing The Summer Book come to the big screen is now complete – the film, with Hollywood star Glenn Close playing the grandmother, celebrated its world premiere in October at BFI London Film Festival and its US premiere at AFI Fest in Los Angeles. Charades handles international sales, and the Finnish release is planned for January 2025.

Bardy credits screenwriter Robert Jones with finding the right approach to the story. He hopes it will appeal to Jansson’s biggest fans as well as newcomers to her work who have never heard of the book, which is comprised of 22 vignettes about summers spent with family on a remote island in the Finnish archipelago.

Jones “nailed it”, the producer says, by staying “true to the novel, but also adding a through line and a spine”. In his interview with the Nordic Film Talks podcast, Bardy now jokes: “It hurts to realise somebody is more clever than I am.”

The Summer Book is a US-UK-Finland production, with UK producers Kevin Loader and Kath Mattock approaching Helsinki Filmi (where Bardy is head of production) about seven years ago with the idea to adapt the beloved book. At first they just wanted Helsinki Film to provide production services, but over those up-and-down stops-and-starts of seven years, Helsinki Filmi grew into a creative producer and partner as well: “We grew that involvement, and we were also able to bring in financing, which I am really happy about, as well as creative elements from Finland,” Bardy says.

There are dozens of partners on the film — the backers from across the Nordics include Mediefondet Zefyr, the Finnish Film Foundation, the Finnish Impact Film Fund, Business Finland - Audiovisual Production Incentive, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Föreningen Konstsamfundet & Svenska Kulturfonden, South East Finland Film Commission, and Finnish public broadcaster YLE. Norway’s Eye Eye Pictures is also a co-producer.

The Summer Book shot in 2023 around the Finnish archipelago locations of Kotka, Porvoo and Espoo (near by Jansson’s own island). “It was a great time, and we had a lot of luck with the weather,” Bardy remembers. “Things were very smooth. Glenn Close was miraculously fun and easy to work with.”,

The cast is rounded out by Norway’s Anders Danielsen Lie, who played in The Worst Person In The World (Verdens verste menneske), as the father, and newcomer Emily Matthews as the granddaughter.

Another director had been attached during those early years of development, but US director Charlie McDowell had loved the book, and sent his producers Duncan Montgomery and Alex Orlovsky scouting for the rights. McDowell’s wife is Emily in Paris star Lily Collins, who is also an executive producer on the film.

Nailing Glenn Close to play grandmother really got the ball rolling for the combined teams. “What we've learned in the process is that it's possible that you have a great script and you have almost all the financing in place, but without the suitable cast, it's not happening,” Bardy says.

He is impressed that the English-language adaptation of the Finnish novel written in Swedish still has a Nordic authenticity. “One of the key things that Charlie talked about was that he wanted to make a film for the entire world, but he wanted to be respectful and true to Finland and the Nordics. He went to a lot of trouble to understand local ways and to make sure that everything looks authentic.”

Bardy continues: “He wants to make tribute to this piece of culture instead of being an American who vandalises it or commercialises something that he doesn't really understand. I think he made a great job of understanding the sensitivities in the novel, but also bringing in an aspect of an outside eye.”

Helsinki Filmi, now an independent subsidiary of Aurora Studios, already has a lot of experience with Jansson and her family, thanks to their acclaimed 2020 biopic Tove, which Bardy produced alongside Andrea Reuter, and which stars Alma Pöysti and was directed by Zaida Bergroth. Having already made that film “did help, and so did having a good connection with the family, and it was also helpful having spent so much time thinking about the essence of Tove Jansson. Who she was and what she means and what her work is.”

Helsinki Film’s many other credits include Tom of Finland, Heart of a Lion (Leijonasydän), Dogs Don't Wear Pants(Koirat eivät käytä housuja), and Lapland Odyssey (Napapiirin sankarit). The company is working across film and television, such as the series Codename: Annika. Its recent co-productions include the UK-Finland queer-themed identity drama Sebastian, which premiered at Sundance.

Of Sebastian, Bardy says: “It’s a beautiful film, and Mikko [Mäkelä, director] and James [Watson, producer] are nice colleagues. It’s a rather clever film about sex in general, some of the ideas they are playing with are pretty daring.”

In the full podcast, Bardy also talks about the tattoo that some crew members of The Summer Book got inked in honour of Glenn Close; how the team scouted for an English-speaking young girl living in Finland; and how Tove Jansson’s niece Sophia gave her blessing and cooperation to the film.