Hello everyone, I'm Parisa Ghasemi. I'm from Iran, but I'm living in Austria for six years now. And I'm doing this Lins International Short Chain Festival here in Lins. And I thought maybe it's a really good time that we could join together to chat a little bit about this issue that we are facing all and to change a little bit different ideas to see what we can do to continue working and yeah yes i think it's a very nice idea to do this panel discussion. Hello Julia! Hello, good evening! Do you want to introduce yourself? Definitely. So hey, my name is Julia Aelomäki and I'm a producer working in a company called Tekele Productions, which based in Helsinki but I'm originally from Tampere where Pasi is at the moment so we know very well each other and I've been working at Tekele for a little bit over two years now as a producer and actually I've like this year I've produced already two short films and one short project is coming up and we are shooting next week so it's really a good time to discuss this subject matter. Oh yes it is. Pasi what about you? Yeah I'm Pasi also producer from Finland and really still living also in Tampere or close to Tampere situation with Covid is a bit easier here than in Helsinki and the rest of Europe because we are as you can see in countryside in the darkness we don't meet anybody here so yeah a little bit easier but for us we had two short films premiering just before covid and of course it's the situation is what it is there's nothing we can do about it at the moment The next short film we will shoot is going to be in April, I hope. So not affecting with our short films at the moment very hardly, but of course the situation totally as a whole is difficult. We also produce documentaries. And with one documentary, we are waiting to get the football stadiums full of people again and it may take some life hello everybody my name is aska toba and i'm doing some radio shows about berlin's international short film festival and i'm just very happy and glad to be with you and talk with you about the topic. Shall we just start with the first questions, right? And if Ileana comes in, we can just maybe she answers the questions also. I would like to start with the questions about the difficulties these days and like what are the difficulties for short-term makers these days and what are new positive possibilities? Julia, do you want to start? Yeah, well of course the COVID situation is a bit scary and it affects during the shootings quite a lot. We shot one short film in the beginning of August and actually that was the time that the situation was pretty good in Finland all over the place, but now it's getting worse in Helsinki, not so much in other places, a few other places, but Helsinki is definitely with the most COVID cases. The concrete thing is that we work with masks on and of course that's something that everybody had to be used to do now in the new normal. And of course, if you think about shootings and actually building up the production, the places we shoot are much more difficult to get, people are much more careful in every sense, not just the film crews but everybody. So that of course affects quite a lot for the production and of course because we need to be quite sure we are testing a lot of people and if you think about short film budgets it's not so easy to do the quite expensive tests all the time even even if it's not a long period of shooting but or every it doesn't matter like we don't have enough extra money for that and of course like now I've also produced a few short films that actually premiered in the beginning of this year so if you think about the cycle of the ready short film it is really difficult because we don't have the festivals as we have got to know them like we don't see each other in person we mostly go virtual traveling for the festival so it's really different from it and of course you cannot get the same same feeling of the festivals and you don't meet the people so of course it's a bit more lonely if you could say that but of course short films is is not that difficult than if you compare to feature-length films or or tv series actually our production company is shooting one tv series at the moment so it's it's a lot more stress if you think about in in the longer period but any anyhow finland is quite good with the situation still and we can work we don't have any lockdowns yet hopefully there's not not coming we had one during the spring but hopefully we're not doing another lockdown anymore where everybody everybody's just hoping. So, of course, the situation is really stressful. But do you still plan for further projects? Or how is it possible to plan? Well, I think a very important thing is that you keep your mind optimistic in this situation and try to kind of like be hopeful that there is a better situation go ahead and I think that that gives a lot of strength and power and helps to cope with the stress to work on next projects and and I think it's it's really important not to forget that there hopefully is a better time for everything um but of course now uh we've been in this situation for half a year or so so of course we've starting to kind of like get used to it so of course the planning gets easier like every week because of course we can do some preparations but i think there was some discussion with producer colleagues last week in finland and we discussed that actually we cannot have a b plan we are just kind of like going ahead every day, just taking the one day and not like going too much forward. But I think it's like if you think about your mental health, it's really important to try to plan new projects and plan things ahead. plan things ahead. Kasi, what do you think? What are new positive possibilities maybe, or are there any? Yeah, there's always positive sides also. I don't know if we are allowed to talk about them also, because the situation is of course bad. I have been very happy that there's a possibility to go on the festivals online also or meet people online. It saves so much time and so much also environment. Of course, we are missing the real festival feeling and so on but sometimes we just need to go and meet somebody and have a meeting for example we are living 200 kilometers from Helsinki and sometimes we are just driving to Helsinki so the short term of 5 minutes or 10 minutes for the financiers and then we drive back so it takes whole day it doesn't make sense and now now now we all are learning new ways to to work and it's it's every day it's it's it's not anymore that if somebody says that it can be can we have a conference conference or meeting in zoom that everybody says no i, I don't know how to use. Everybody has to use this to do it. And it's new normal somehow also. And I hope it stays also. It affects also, we are still, Finland is so big and long country. Everything is happening basically in Finland, France, in Helsinki and the situation if you are living in somewhere northern Finland, you have a thousand kilometers to go to Helsinki and hear your colleagues opinions and have a ja kuulla kollegian mielipiteitä ja keskustella. Mutta nyt voit olla osa sitä myös. Se on ehkä yksi positiivinen osa siitä. Oletko käyttänyt niitä platformeja aiemmin? Vai tämä on aivan uusi työpaikkaasi? Olimme kehittämällä jollain tavalla online-editointi-yhteyden jo viime vuonna. Olemme niin pahoja, ettei olemme käyttäneet mitään rahaa tekemään sitä. We are so sorry that we didn't apply any funding for doing it. We just did it because it's now a perfect thing for us also, how to use one of our own platforms, how we thought, what about if the director is in Helsinki and we are in Tampere, how we can still use the same editing room and that kind of platforms we've built it already somehow. Of course, we have been using all kinds of video conferences already beforehand because we are not in the same bar as everybody else so we are just drinking beer alone and discussing with ourselves. What would you say, how is it possible to produce a short film during a lockdown and what are new to dodos on your list? What wasn't there before? Juliette, do you want to take this? Because we are going to shoot one picture, one frame short film. It's quite easy, I think. I hope. I hope so too so too well of course like well as I said uh we had the lockdown during the spring and almost every shooting was cancelled there was few productions still going on during the lockdown but of course being more careful using the masks washing hands being really careful with that but of course I think for me for example I of course hope that we are not going to that situation again and that's kind of like something how to protect our minds for that. But like new to do's, there's actually quite a lot of them. I think producing anything audiovisual is quite stressful and you need to react very quickly to everything so it's kind of like um a second like a new stage for us producers uh because of course it's more stress even more stressful nowadays. But I think that somehow made us stronger, made us be more capable of dealing with the stress because this is something that we really cannot solve, this COVID situation. So it's kind of like making things easier a bit. Yes, Parisa also said it's very important to be flexible as hell so how do you stay flexible and how do you like rework every time and how it is just not breaking at all? Film and art and there is no one way to do it right so that's one I think most important thing also you can also effect on script and think maybe I can use it somehow or maybe I can... whatever the situation is maybe you can say okay okay we don't have this location okay we will shoot differently and maybe in the end it could be even better solution than the first idea was. I think that just keep in mind that it could be positive also. Not that everything is going to be ruined if you are not getting a black cat in the film, it can be also a grey cat in the film, it can be also great in the film. Oh yes. And Parisa, you also said because of organizing the festival, you had to rearrange a lot of times. How did you stay calm during all those rearrangements? Yes, I wanted also to add that as filmmaker, I guess every filmmaker used to re-plan everything Takk for ating mediet!