Finnish/Estonian producer Helen Vinogradov tells us of her collaboration with J-P Valkeapää, selected at the Directors Fortnight and unveils projects by upcoming female directors. 

Helen Vinogradov joined Helsinki Filmi in 2014 and has since been a key asset for the independent production company co-owned by Tolkien’s director Dome Karukoski, Annika Suckdorff [currently head of Film in Sweden for SF Studios) and founder Aleksi Bardy.

The company’s DNA is in commercially-oriented films and TV dramas, and co-productions - many of them done with the Scandi group Anagram.

Reporting to CEO, writer/producer Bardy, Vinogradov is among four in-house producers steering the company’s film and TV drama output. “As CEO, Aleksi oversees all projects, but tends to concentrate on screenwriting and TV drama these days,” says Vinogradov. “Tia Ståhlberg who has been a long time with Helsinki Filmi works on family entertainment, the latest recruit Andrea Reuter is more commercially-oriented, and I bring my experience in European co-productions and link to the Baltics, while working on auteur films. We all complement each other perfectly,” notes Vinogradov.

J-P Valkeapää - on Helsinki Filmi’s roster since his breakthrough feature The Visitor (2008) - has been working closely with Vinogradov on his Directors’ Fortnight entry. “We have a very respectful relationship although we’re opposites: I’m a slow boiler, I need time to let go of emotions, whereas J-P is impetuous,” says the producer.

She describes Dogs Don’t Wear Pants as a ‘more linear and accessible film,’ although still wrapped in Valkeapää’s unique eerie visual style, photographed again by Pietari Peltola (2015 Sven Nykvist Award-Best Cinematography for Valkeapää’s The Have Escaped).

Dogs Don’t Wear Pants tells the story of Juha (Pekka Strang) has lost his wife in a drowning accident. Years after, he still feels numb and unable to connect with people. Meeting Mona (Krista Kosonen), a dominatrix, changes everything. “The film deals with the universal themes of grief, loss, but it’s also a rom com with sarcasm, humour and BDSM. It simply goes under your skin,” says Vinogradov who stresses the ‘amazing performance from Strang and Kosonen. “Pekka was in our previous film Tom of Finland and Krista in Miami. Both are superb actors having international careers nowadays. They invested themselves a lot in the film.”

Through Vinogradov’s Baltic connections, the €1.4m film was co-produced by Latvia’s Tasse Film, in association with Bionaut (Czech Republic), support from the Finnish Film Foundation, Yle, National Film Centre of Latvia, and Riga Film Fund. SF Studios has Scandinavian rights and The Yellow Affair handles world sales. The film was shot almost entirely in Riga.

Vinogradov has also two projects by upcoming female directors on her slate:
  • a comedy by Maria Reinup who won accolades for several short films and worked with Karukoski on Tolkien as second AD. Her feature debut is about a woman who realises it is now or never for her to get pregnant. 
  • Room 511 by Finnish/Turkish Sevgi Eker (The 99 Steps Left from The Square), a genre-driven drama about refugees in the Nordic region. The script was developed as part of the Women in Film and Television Finland’s In Focus incubator.

Helsinki Filmi is also about to shoot next month the film Iron Ladies, a comedy by actress-turned director Pamela Tola (Swingers).