PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews Selma Vihunen, director of the film Stupid Young Heart.
Stupid Young Heart comes from the screenwriter Kirsikka Saari’s idea, tells director Selma Vilhunen who’s at the 69th Berlinale to present it in the Generation 14 plus section. The director, who already won Alice nella Città in Rome with Little Wing, reveals how Saari had always wanted to write a film about teenage pregnancy in Finland and then they both managed to mix this topic with another essential theme to be talking about nowadays: the strong need for adolescents, for teenagers to belong in a group, whether it is a political one or religious. The two young parents to be are apparently different from one another but they both can be fiery and in the end capable of becoming parents.
Stupid Young Heart is about the first love between the skinny and carefree Lenni and the gorgeous and popular Kiira. Not yet in a relationship, nor out of highschool, they discover that they are expecting a baby. Lenni has nine months to become a man. Having grown up without a father figure, Lenni finds longed-for adult attention and guidance from an unlikely friend Janne, a member of a right wing group that has recently moved into Lenni’s diverse neighbourhood. After taking part in a scrambled attack on a local Mosque, while Kiira is rushed to the hospital to give birth, Lenni realises that he must learn to be a man in his own way, even though he never had a chance to be a child himself.
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