You’ve both made films before, but it is the first time you worked together. How did this project begin?
Kim: We first encountered each other’s works at film festivals and eventually began corresponding online, collaborating on scripts and strategies. Through these interactions, we discovered our shared cinematic- as well as political ideologies. One day, Sawandi surprised me by renting an off-season holiday cabin. We spent a cozy weekend there together. That’s where it all began.
Sawandi: We wrote the script in two days while staying in this cabin, based on our discussions on siblinghood. I was very fascinated by Kim’s short film 2gether, about Kim’s brother Hampus’ break-up. Hampus is this bodybuilder sexy reality-tv persona, and Kim is quite the opposite of that, so I asked a lot of questions about that, realizing I had some problematic presumptions. He spoke very beautifully about their relationship. Similarly, I have siblings who look nothing like me, spread across the world. But we are connected, obviously, for life.
Could you tell us more in your desire to tell this story?
We just don’t have so much passion for storytelling at all, the plot/setup in XXL could easily have been replaced for anything else – Still resulting in a very similar movie.
In the movie, while visiting Helsinki, they meet lots of different people, mainly coming from abroad. How did the casting process go? How did you work with them the different scenes? Was there a script? How did you work?
Sawandi: We outsourced the casting process in Finland to a couple of friends who are documentary filmmakers, giving them free hands. Saarlotta Virri found Enkete while walking around in Sörnäinen. He walked around with a French copy of Albert Camus’s Stranger in his hand. He basically plays himself in a heightened way. There’s never any backstory or complex psychological development in our films, so there’s not really any need for directing other than saying “then you look there” or “then you walk there”, “just stare over there”. We both also tend to cast family members in our films, which is very convenient.
Kim: Astrid Drettner and Georgios Giokotos, who play the leads, are professional actors though. with them we tried to pull off some more dramatic stuff. I think I have more of these tendencies than Sawandi. In the edit we tried to balance out the wide variety of different expressions.
You are mixing dream and reality, different cinema genre, from a kind of social realism to some burlesque and to some dreamlike parts, even experimental? Could you enlighten us about this choice?
Kim: We thought we were making a minimalist talkie á la Éric Rohmer and were pretty shocked to see what we had filmed. It’s a schizophrenic movie, for better or worse, but at least it reflects our mental states at the time.
Sawandi: Perhaps it’s a very honest film, a visualization of someone trying to make a movie while they go. Hopefully it offers some comfort to follow our attempts, failures, and occasional strokes of luck.
Representation as well as art have a large part in the film, through their discussions as well as through the place they visit or their activities. What interested you in doing so? A necessity from the outset?
Sawandi: We wanted them to do quite normal things and maybe the activities are captured through a certain lens, but basically, they are engaging in the same things that I am when a friend visits from abroad. We play football at the local park, visit a museum, go to a bar and if we feel like it, go to church.
Kim: In my youth, holiday trips ignited a sudden interest in culture in my parents, prompting visits to museums and historical landmarks, trying new food. Sawandi and I are both raised in homogenous countryside environments, so the discovery of art and culture meant a great deal. Without being too spiritual, I think people must re-discover that they have a soul, a genius.
You chose to shoot in 16mm. What interested you in filming with this format?
Kim: We knew from the start that this would be an underfinanced project. Analog was a good way to create an atmosphere where you are creating something real- since the film itself is a physical object.
Could one see this film as an ode to fantasy?
Both: We rather choose to see the fantastic as an ode to realism.
Interviewed by Nicolas Feodoroff
