“You never know where the road is going”-Finnish Outi Rousu is an Oscar candidate

When Sunday In Hollywood, Oscar awards are awarded, the producer is also excited in the audience Outi Rousu.

He is an Oscar nominee as part of a team who has made a series of short documentaries Instruments of a Beating Heart.

“I’ve been making movies for 35 years. Whenever you start work with a new movie, you never know where that road is going, ”says Rousu in a telephone interview.

“Now we have become a candidate for the Oscar race. Yes, this movie is one of the most important and beautiful all of these films I have done to me. ”

Instruments of a Beating Heart is a short documentary of about 23 minutes based on a full length of 2023 School year in Japan documentary. Its the director is Ema Ryan Yamazaki.

Rousu came into the project when yamazaki and producer Eric is looking for Looking for partners in Toronto at the Hot Docs Forum in the Documentary Film.

“I myself have an interest in just such documents. It struck a debate on Finnish elementary school-that is, what the Finnish primary school is about, what mistakes have been made and why not be on the top of the Pisa list, ”says Rousu.

It was agreed by Rousu and his Vertical Forest production company to produce the music of the documentary and to organize the Finnish distribution of Finnish. The composer was attached Päivi Takalaand the music was recorded by Finnish musicians.

“Director EMA Ryan Yamazaki and producer Eric Nyari were pleased that Finland is involved because Finland and Finnish elementary school have a good reputation in Japan.”

School year in Japan The documentary follows the Japanese school 1 and 6th grade students for one academic year.

When it was shown in New York, the Subscriber of the OP-Docs Series Series in The New York Times, which was present, suggested that the material be transformed into a short document in the magazine’s publishing series. Its documents are up to half an hour.

Therefore, the documentarists decided to highlight the long documentary in the 1st grade student Ayamenfollowed in a new shorter version. Instruments of a Beating Heart The lyrics follows his disappointment and success as he practices percussion to interpret the schoolchildren Beethoven From ood to joy.

Because Starring the music made by Ayame and other schoolchildren, the short documentary does not hear nearly as much music composed by Päivi Takala as the original school year in Japan.

“In a long documentary, music was a significant narrative element when the director created an emotional drama for the story. That is, it kind of gave an indication of even a short document when it was cut, ”says Outi Rousu.

Instruments of a Beating Heart was published in the New York Times on the website In November 2024, and at Sunday’s gala it will compete with Oscar with four other short documents.

“This film stands out not only in its theme but also in the mood,” Outi Rousu compares candidates.

“I think other candidates are all quite dark stories. Although our movie goes through the sadness and crying of all emotional screeds, there is still a positive power. It’s hard to say when we live in such gloomy times that what is currently about to the audience. ”

Helsingin Sanomat follows the Oscar gala on Sunday and Monday night and reported the winners recently at HS.fi.