Friday, July 22, 2011

Everything you need to know about Emilie de Ravin's "Love and Other Troubles"

  As you probably know, Emilie is currently working on her new project named "Love and Other Troubles". The filming takes place in Finland and it will last for almost a month. In this article i will try to categorize and present you every information has surfaced about the movie! So let's start.
  First of all, i would like to start with the story of the film. The movie is descriped as "an almost romantic comedy" that focuses on the life of Ville, a former child star who has never beaten his dad in wrestling. He now leads a routine life in a small Finnish town giving guitar lessons to kids. His life, which usually works like clockwork, is shaken when his father, a washed-up rock star and an impulsive bohemian, shows up on his doorstep and announces that he needs a place to stay for a few days – or weeks. Ville does not know how to say no. But the worst shock comes when one night, his dad comes home with a girl about Ville's age. It's Sara (played by Emilie de Ravin of course), a funny and quirky American student who teaches country line dancing at the local activity center. After he and Sara become friends, and he realises that he is attracted to her, the awkward love triangle is ready. A few pony rides, line dancing face-offs and wrestling matches later Ville learns that he can be just as impulsive as his father.
  So from what we learn, on the one hand Emilie will have the opportunity to show her talent in a comic role and on the other hand we will have the opportunity to witness her dancing skills for the first time! It sounds really tempting, doesn't it?
  Obviously, Emilie will not be alone in the film. Her co-stars are two finnish actors named Ville Virtanen and Jussi Nikkilä. Virtanen will play the father while Nikkila will play Ville! Some of Ville Virtanen's projects are "Sauna", "Priest of Evil" and "Beyond" while Jussi Nikkila has participated in "Hymypoika", "Bastard", and "Ganes". Unfortunately, the supporting cast is not announced yet but we may have more information soon.
Ville Virtanen

 
  The screenwriters of the film are Katri Manninen and Samuli Valkama. Valkama is also directing. "Love and
Other Troubles is the first feature film Samuli Valkama is directing. He has previously worked on short films like Alright Love, which won a prize in Berlin. The film is produced by "Bronson Club" which is a Helsinki-based production company. BRONSON CLUB is a part of SOLAR FILMS, a leading Finnish feature film and TV production company which has produced some 20 feature films and television drama in addition to a variety of TV entertainment programmes for Finnish TV. Solar Films is a part of Nordisk Film.
Samuli Valkama
   As i told you before, the filming has already started in Finland. They are currently filming scenes in a town named Turku. According to Wikipedia Turku is a medieval city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland. Because of its long history it has been the site of many important historical events and has extensively influenced Finnish history. For the year 2011, Turku has been designated to be the European Capital of Culture together with Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. In 1996 it was declared the official Christmas City of Finland.
Aerial view of Turku from Turku Cathedral
   Besides from Turku, "Love and Other Troubles" will be filmed in Salo, another finish city and the U.S. The exact place hasn't been announced yet. It would be great though to see some known actors have a cameo in the film, playing Emilie's parents or her American friends.
  The preperation for the film has started a while ago. Bronson company has been looking for extras, cars and other stuff that are going to be used on the set. As i informed you though, the filming started four days ago. Producers and other members of the film's crew has been tweeting about the process. Here are some of their tweets:










  As for the movie's release, according to cineuropa.org the movie will be released domestically next spring in Scandinavia by Nordisk Film Production AB. So far we know nothing about the U.S. release of the film. What i can assume is that "Love and Other Troubles" will premiere in some Film Festivals before it finds a distributor in the U.S. Other "Bronson Club's" productions has premiered in festivals like Sundance and Samuli Valkama's latest short film was presented in Berlin Film Festival so there are a lot of chances to see this film in one of those or a similar festival. Furthermore, one of the producers of the film, Andrew D. Corkin, has a production company in NY and  through his carreer, he has produced indies like Afterschool (which premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival within the Un Certain Regard category and was nominated for the 2009 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature) and Martha Marcy May Marlene (which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, in competition, eventually selling worldwide rights to Fox Searchlight and winning the Best Director Award). So i am sure that he will try to do his best with "Love and Other Troubles".
   As for the film's budget, one part of it was given by "Finnish Film Foundation". The actual budget is 1,6. "Finnish Film Foundation" donated 680.000.
  So, this is all the info i have learnt about the film. I hope i haven't forgot anything! The filming has ended for this week, so we will probably have more updates on Monday. For this article i would like to thank Ludelia,  owner of emiliederavinworld.blogspot.com for sharing a lot of information with me and other fans of Emilie's on FanForum. Credit also goes to some finnish sites as well, for posting some of the info. I hope you found the article informative. I promise to share more things with you whenever i find more information!

5 comments:

  1. Great article :)

    I posted a link to it on my site

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ludelia, thank you very much! I wouldn't have writen the article without your information!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, great article indeed!

    I'm Katri Manninen, the co-writer of the film.

    I'll visit the set in a couple of weeks, so I haven't met Emilie yet, but one of the producers with whom I talked after the first week told me that they're all in awe with her.

    She's extremely professional, keeps asking (good) questions and is also very sweet and lovely. Her chemistry with both men is great on screen, which makes me very happy, because chemistry is something you can't really make happen if it isn't there.

    As that producer said: "We were very lucky to get her".

    Also the mood in the set has been great -- even better than expected (and we expected it to be good, since the director is a kind, sweet and smart guy with a great sense of humor).

    This is my third feature film to be produced (in addition to hundreds of TV show episodes I've written) and I have to say this is by far the best script I've ever written. It's funny, sweet, crazy and heartwarming. We started writing the project in 2008 and have written well over 20 major versions of it. When we wrote the final version of the script earlier this year, we really felt that we had finally got the story right.

    The budget is comparable with $5,000,000 US budget -- sure it's a low budget for US but an average budget in Finland.

    Thank you for a great article! Can't wait to meet Emilie and see how the film will turn out.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you very much for your kind words and the extra information! I am very happy that you like the article!

    I am also glad to hear that the mood on the set is so good and that everyone is satisfied with Emilie!

    According to her interviews, Emilie always wanted to play in a good comedy, so i am sure that the script you wrote is great. Me and all the fans of Emilie's can not wait to see the movie come to life!

    I hope that when you visit the set, you have an amazing time with Emilie and the rest of the cast and the crew!

    Do you mind if i post your comment or parts of it in my blog? I am sure other Emilie's fans would be very happy to know all those great things about the atmosphere on the set!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Of course I don't mind if you post this. And There's a new pic of her in suomenkuvalehti.fi - check out section called: "kuvat". I'm writing this from my phone and can't copy the link here.

    ReplyDelete

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