00:26This is Tim Wasper from Fast Track on CERC TV.
00:29I'm here in Austin, Texas for fantastic fact.
01:05You know, The Squirrel is an interesting ideal on the notion of loneliness, but also a society or the world
01:13we're living in in certain ways.
01:15Could you talk about sort of the concept of that from your point of view in terms of both the
01:21setting, but also these characters specifically, you know, Pasi and Amelia?
01:26I guess it started back then in like 2018.
01:31It was like it started from my own personal somehow contradicted relationship to nature.
01:38And this kind of I taught myself that I kind of I'm a person who loves nature, but at the
01:45same time, when I was honest, I kind of felt that my I actually my whole life was basically like
01:52designed to make me as as apart from nature as possible in many ways.
01:57So that kind of like that contradiction started to hit me.
02:02And I think it's it went from there when I kind of it combined with with all the news about
02:09all the extinctions happening, like all the time, like every day, every week.
02:14I felt that there was again, I read a newspaper article about, you know, some species going extinct and at
02:21the same time, I felt that I was like getting more and more alienated from the natural world with technology
02:29and with like, I don't know, this kind of pleasant, safe life that I was living and I felt alienated
02:35myself.
02:36And and and those two things kind of combined into this concept of of like the species are going extinct.
02:45I'm living this alienated life.
02:49But what if it actually doesn't matter if if the nature disappears, because we can we have this technology and
02:57everything.
02:57We are so progressive that maybe we can just, you know, replace it with something that will be kind of
03:02more convenient for us, you know, like more safe and more, I don't know, controllable.
03:08So these kind of that that idea led to this image of a person living in this world where I
03:15don't know more animals meeting the last girl in the world.
03:22And, yeah, I don't know what your question about, like the concept of that.
03:27Yeah, I think that's the that's the thing.
03:29But I kind of like, you know, it was back then and then it was even before COVID hit.
03:35So when COVID was like it became like instantly more not so science fiction, not so distant, you know, and
03:44the things I had in the script were happening in the real life at the same time.
03:47But suddenly, you know, it changed a lot of the of my kind of perspective and the thinking behind it.
03:54And it actually later, as time went by, I kind of felt that it helped me to make the film
04:00a bit more lighter.
04:02And I could leave some of the backstory or a lot of the backstory away because I kind of felt
04:07that we we know we kind of know that things can pretty quickly even escalate into something like this, you
04:15know.
04:15So I realized that I was actually writing about these times.
04:50Now, was Helsinki during COVID, what was it where were people leaving the city?
04:56Was Helsinki like very quiet?
04:59How what was that like?
05:00Because, you know, obviously, you know, I know, you know how the city is.
05:04I mean, so filled with art, so filled with architecture, all that stuff.
05:08But then when you go out into the forest, it's a completely different feeling.
05:12Yeah, it happened and it for sure happened.
05:15And suddenly, you know, places where I had also went outside of Helsinki, like nature places that had had been
05:21quiet, were suddenly like feeling up with people, which was like really interesting, like lines of cars, which was also
05:30like absurd.
05:31And, you know, one thing that is like kind of behind this whole film to me is that I kind
05:38of wanted to look at our species as a species, you know, in kind of like a bigger picture as
05:45a species among other species.
05:46And this was like, when I say that out loud, even now, it gives me this kind of humorous, absurd
05:55aspect.
05:56And, you know, seeing those cues of the cars suddenly parked in these nature places was also like an image
06:04of our species going like, oh, now we want to go to the nature.
06:08And then everybody goes there.
06:09It's like, I don't know, there's some tragic comedy in that also.
06:13But there's the tragic comedy.
06:15I mean, the one thing when I first saw, you know, the artificial dog, you know, the one thing that
06:21came to mind to me is because I remember and I remember this happening, I want to say it was
06:25up in Scandinavia as well, is where they were programming the like furry seals that had AI in them.
06:32And people were petting them as a form of connection because, and this is for Alzheimer's patients who couldn't care
06:41for such an animal themselves.
06:43I thought that was a really dynamic thing because you're also discussing the aspect of technology and obviously AI, but
06:51there's no substitute for organic.
06:54Like, yes, that's an interesting thing.
06:57Yeah, that's the question.
06:58I think to me, like, is there like, that's one of the, I think one of the, the main concept
07:04stories of the whole starting point was that, like, would there be something missing if we replace nature with something
07:10that we came up with, you know, virtual experience or whatever experience, immersive something.
07:18Like, like, would there be something missing or not?
07:21I don't know, because like, that's, that's part of the kind of alienation thing to me that that's what we're
07:28doing basically all the time, you know, and now also that brings to the sex in the film and, you
07:35know, people are replacing sex with also with like virtual or whatever substitution, probably suddenly in some near future with
07:43robots, you know, it's like these questions are going on right now.
07:47Like, what is, what is the kind of, what is the specialty of the organic or the real thing, you
07:56know, is there something like that?
07:58Is it just that we replace it with something and take the kind of good things that fit us and
08:03fills our needs more easily and quickly, you know, can we just take them and just leave all the inconvenience
08:11out?
08:15Like, what is it, like, what is it, like, what is it?
08:44Interesting, because that we're talking about biology.
08:48And I mean, the whole thing that comes to play, and I mean, it plays out the very, towards the
08:52end, is the aspect of what is that primal instinct?
08:56Is it just for procreation?
08:58Or is it for pleasure?
08:59It's really an interesting thing to discuss.
09:02I mean, and the fact that most of, let's put it, the younger generation right now, they can't communicate in
09:10person as much.
09:11I'm not saying that's an overall thing, but it's a different disconnection.
09:15Yeah, and I mean, I'm not, like, the whole point of this film to me is not to be nostalgic
09:21or, you know, say some, like, black and white roots about what is right or wrong.
09:27To me, that was like, I don't want to go there.
09:30But I somehow feel that these are questions that I, they were, like, really personal to me also.
09:35Like, I feel that contradiction in me and in my, you know, the way I want to fulfill my needs
09:42and the kind of price I'm willing to pay to kind of, you know, do something that is more difficult
09:52or more demanding.
09:53You know, and those are questions that I ask and I have to ask if I get, like, possibilities to
09:59do something that is more easy and more quickly somehow fulfills my needs.
10:04Like, am I just taking that or not?
10:07And in many times I am taking that because I am also, you know, lazy, comfortable or a person who
10:16wants to kind of, you know, have the quickest way to comfort and safety, you know.
10:22And this is something that I feel that is, that's to me, that is in really the core of a
10:28lot of, also a lot of the question, discussion about AI, you know, we are kind of, I think that
10:34is something that is in our species to, in us human beings to kind of choose the quickest, easiest, I
10:43don't know, safest route to, to the fruit, you know.
