11/09/2023 - VENICE 2023: The director shares some thoughts on her vision for this film centring on three young sisters left to their own devices, with no parents around

(© Lilja Fredrikson)

After co-directing the documentary Silvana [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] in 2017, featuring rapper Silvana Imam (who herself co-starred in last year’s Venice-screened Dogborn [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Isabella Carbonell
film profile]), this year sees Mika Gustafson’s first solo flight as a fiction feature director, as Paradise Is Burning [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mika Gustafson
film profile] premiered in the Orizzonti section at the 80th Venice International Film Festival. Centring on three young sisters left to their own devices, with no parents around, the film possesses a dreamlike quality, at times clashing with harsh realism. The director shared some thoughts on her vision, at times going for a “show, not tell” strategy.

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Cineuropa: Let’s start with the classic question “How does it feel?” You have just screened your first fiction feature. Are you in a good mood?
Mika Gustafson: I am. But what I really want to do right now is ask you, “What do you think?” I’ve probably seen it 300 times in the editing room, but the film is finally meeting an audience, and I’m so curious about the reactions. What happens? Does it work? The screening was fantastic, the sound system alone beyond belief. I sat with the audience, listening in on reactions. Some of them were expected, others not at all, which pleased me. I’ve looked at a few reviews. When they address my particular visions, or at least what I hope are my visions, that’s what makes me the most satisfied.

What have been some of these main visions, if we dare to explore?
Many, to say the least. One is that I wanted three children without acting experience, who should feel like flesh and blood, and be believable. I’m getting tired of reproduced characters, instead of authentic ones. I’m also deploying a “show, not tell” strategy, in which we can get up close to what is alive and real.

Let’s look at the embryo of the story. Where did it all start?
It’s almost a collage of thoughts and ideas. There’s the aspect of having seen these coming-of-age stories through the years, usually the boy-to-man one. That’s a film I’ve seen many times, sometimes beautifully executed, like Stand by Me, which gets more or less everything right. It’s the girl-to-woman one that’s missing a little for me. Gradually, a thought started to grow inside of me: what if I can paint this picture myself, that of female friendship at a young age, of sisterhood? That thought spurred me on greatly. I started to sketch out the personalities of my characters – could they be both aggressive and caring, humorous, and existential in their thoughts? At times during the writing process, my writing partner Alexander Öhrstrand and I would play around with the characters’ genders, just to see if any of the dynamics would change. Somewhere, I wanted a certain genderless quality, in that these characters, first and last, are simply human beings.

You used the expression “show, not tell”. This aspect of the film’s script is significant and intriguing. What we actually see feels like the small tip of an iceberg with a large, unseen mass below the surface. Very little information is given, for example, regarding the girls’ parents. Can you talk about this process?
The more you know about a character, the less you have to show about them. Alex and I amassed an enormous body of material for the story, including background stories that are not addressed in the movie itself. We wrote and tested it out – we discarded some and kept some. Alex is an actor, so he brings some of those qualities to the table. For me, as the director, I try to think if an idea actually works “in the room”. We pick locations that these people frequent, and we even put together personal playlists with music for them. It’s truly the tip of the iceberg. One day, who knows, we could put out a novel with a fuller story. We have thought about it, or at least joked about it a little.

There are also a few scenes that venture out in a dreamlike direction, well away from the general social-realist tone in the film. It’s when the middle sister gets her first period and when the youngest one loses her front milk tooth. These events are celebrated via some quite wondrous ceremonies. Can you elaborate on this?
We did actually think quite like that: mixing social realism with some kind of larger-than-life quality. We deal with three sisters, who are 16, 12 and seven years old, and they experience these transformations into various stages of childhood or early womanhood. “Why not a ceremony?” suggested Alex. We then started to tailor-make such a ceremony. It came out just right. It also brings some pride to these characters. While miserable at times, they do their own thing, culturally.