One of eleven shorts selected to compete for the 2023 Cannes Film Festival Short Film Palme d’Or, TITS from Writer/Director Eivind Landsvik is a stunningly honest, yet gentle dive into the insecurities and self-doubt felt by teenagers everywhere. Shot on glorious sun dappled 16mm, a languorous summer day at the beach with friends takes an unexpected shift into empathic understanding when a pair of teenagers find themselves abandoned by their friends. Landsvik’s coming-of-age short effortlessly pulls its audience back to those carefree days where without the pressure of adulthood, those formative personal journeys of friendship, love and self-acceptance are an ever-present hyperfocus of monumental proportions for all concerned. Ahead of TITS’ Cannes premiere next week, we spoke to Landsvik about his love for shooting on film, the hands-off but meticulous approach to working with his young actors and using handheld cameras to bring us closer to raw youthful energy.
[The following interview is also available to watch at the end of this article.]
Where did the idea come from for TITS?
It’s often hard to go back because it takes a lot of time to develop these ideas and films and it’s sometimes hard to remember where it all started but TITS it started with Oscar. The idea was to tell a story about a young boy struggling with the things you deal with in youth but also later in life. It started with an image of a young man standing in front of the mirror, getting ready to go out and see his friends. The night didn’t turn out exactly the way he imagined but I built it from that foundation.
There’s no school, it’s summertime and all you have to think about are those feelings of friendship and falling in love.
A previous project of yours Sofia, En Sommer (Sofia, Last Summer) also focuses on those teenage years, why is this a time in life which interests you in particular?
I’m at the age now where I am at the perfect distance to look back and remember and it was also an important time for me. Not all of my memories are good but it was a very interesting time to be alive. If you grew up like I did, it’s a time in your life where you don’t have to worry about paying bills and stuff like that so a lot of those basic feelings are amplified. There’s no school, it’s summertime and all you have to think about are those feelings of friendship and falling in love. It’s absorbing in a different way to when you grow up.
Your actors Marie Bya and Snorre Kind Monsson are so natural and fluid. How did you work with them to bring out those captivating performances?
I spend a lot of time casting them because I like to find someone who right from the start I know is the right person for the character and sometimes it takes time to find that person. Then we do rehearsals and on set I try to not say too much really and to let them understand the role in their way. That’s maybe one of the most important things for me, to find out early on that they really understand the character and what the character is struggling with, especially when there is no dialogue. We have to invite the viewer into her brain, her feelings and her emotions.
That’s maybe one of the most important things for me, to find out early on that they really understand the character and what the character is struggling with.
We can really feel that, especially in the scene where Iben is floating in the water.
I tried to just create a comfortable and safe space for the actors where they can work. I try to be as helpful as I can when they need me and when I see that something isn’t working out. I’ve learnt you need to figure a lot of those things out before you start shooting.
Is all the dialogue scripted?
There are some lines here and there where the actors have taken some freedom. So much is happening in 12 minutes so the script needed to be very tight. I do like to explore outside of the script and explore what’s happening right there and then but with TITS we had so much to shoot and so much dialogue we didn’t have a spare moment. We only had two shooting days.
Your camerawork is very close and intimate, it has the feel of a home video, what did you shoot on?
This is shot on 16mm film, we wanted to be close and we wanted it to be handheld most of the time, not in a documentary way but in a way that we could mirror the spontaneous feelings and the raw energy of youth. I always choose film if I can and with TITS the look was a good match for this story. I’ve tried to make something honest, raw and direct in some way. The film is kind of in your face, I hope not too much and using film felt like the natural choice.
What is it about film that makes you gravitate to it over digital?
I’ve been a film nerd from very early on and when I got older I started studying film history and watching everything and when I grew up, everything was shot on film. In my head, that’s how films are supposed to look. To this day, I still watch a lot of old films and I watch new films that are shot on film and it’s just my preferred medium. If I can choose, I will always choose film. For example, when you are shooting water and the sun bounces down onto it and you see the glow and the tiny glittering, it’s impossible to create that digitally, it looks so much better on film. Those things are really important for TITS to create a strong sense of that place because the location is an important one.
We wanted to be close and we wanted it to be handheld most of the time, not in a documentary way but in a way that we could mirror the spontaneous feelings and the raw energy youth.
What about your selection for Cannes? What does that mean for you and the film?
Being invited to the festival has always been my dream, so it means a lot. In my opinion it’s one the greatest recognitions the film could get. It’s humbling because I have so much respect for that festival. I have always dreamed of going there and not only with my own films, but to watch other films. I hope that I can watch some great cinema during the festival and it means the world to us. It’s hard to put it in words.
What do you think it is about TITS that resonated with the Cannes programmers?
I have no idea, I don’t think it’s for me to say, I think I’m the wrong person to answer. I hope that we have made something recognisable and that it can be recognised anywhere in the world. I made the film quite local in my head but the themes it deals with are probably timeless. It also might be unusual to deal with these themes from a young boy’s point of view rather than a girl’s. Girls have been more sexualized and there are different kinds of pressure. It’s not a political film but that’s where the story started. It was interesting to have two young people who aren’t friends meet, they’re in the same school and they have grown up around each other but they hold all these prejudices towards each other. They’re essentially dealing with the same problems but in opposite ways which a lot of people are.
I’ve also tried to make something non-judgmental, the kids are just being kids and sometimes they’re mean to each other but it doesn’t mean that they’re bad people. There’s a reason for her saying the thing she says because she’s insecure and she’s pressured into doing something she doesn’t want to and she lashes out at Oscar. Those interactions are important to me.
What are you working on next then?
I’m currently developing my first feature film, ready and excited to work on longer formats.
