Producing a documentary with Kerli: conversations about mental health
Kerli Kõiv is one of a few famous Estonian artists enjoying world-wide fame. Her single “Walking On Air” from the album “Love is Dead” (2008, Island Records) reached top of the charts. Some of her songs have been recorded by such artists as Demi Lovato and Tarja Turunen. Kerli’s single “Walking on Air” was downloaded 550,000 times and was featured on iTunes’ “Single of the Week”, a record at the time.
However, in this blog, we’d like to talk more about one of Kerli’s latest albums, “Shadow Works”, which addresses the issues of mental health and staying comfortable with oneself in a fast-changing and fast-paced life.
Kerli describes the process of working with our team on the documentary:
“We never started out with a plan to make a documentary. But at some point, we realized we had enough footage to create a small piece that teleports the viewer into a land of nature, magic, and self-development, so we thought, why not? I had secretly filmed my creative process during the Shadow Works album cycle and it was cool to mix it in with all the professional footage we had accumulated and created over the past few years. I also really love the interview pieces — the guys from Vita Pictura really knew how to ask the right questions and it’s been nothing but a huge pleasure creating with this highly motivated and professional team. I hope this little mini-documentary inspires people the world over to tap into their own creativity and psychology, to embrace all life in its magic and darkness. And to offer a further intimate glimpse of my secret world to all my beloved moon children.” — Kerli
How We Met
Our film crew’s first contact with Kerli took place in 2018, at Pühajarve Jaanituli festival 2018, a yearly festival in the south of Estonia. At the time, we were producing a series of videos called VP Meets with artists and sportspeople, so we asked Kerli and her manager, Cyrus, if we could feature her in one of our next episodes. In the end, Vita Pictura’s directors
and Anastasia Zazhitskaya decided to produce a short documentary portrait of Kerli, giving her the platform to voice her philosophy behind the album “Shadow Works”.
Preparing for the Interview — the director’s view
Georgius, co-founder and director at Vita Pictura explained that “we decided to include the footage from the Pühajarve Jaanituli festival in the film. Kerli’s manager Cyrus and Kerli herself wanted to have good quality footage of her performances, including another one from Instrikurmu Festival — shots from there were also included in the film. Between these festivals, we met with Kerli since she had a free window, and recorded the interview footage seen in the film.”
“It was the first interview that I took by myself, asking questions. Kerli’s replies were longer and carried more of the artist’s explorations; she wasn’t afraid to answer difficult questions and she didn’t want to know the questions beforehand”- adds Georgius.
Cyrus, manager of Kerli who took part in creating the portrait film with us, adds:
“We started to work with Vita Pictures on one of Kerli’s concerts when we teamed up to shoot the performance and to obtain footage of the show. Their team was such a pleasure to work with and thus thereafter came a conversation of creating a short TV spot documentary designed for Estonian television. But though the process, we realized we have great content that can outline the journey of Kerli as an artist in her self discovery of making her debut independent album and the process in which she found he courage for that independence. Using the archival footage Kerli had herself, combined with Vita Picture’s film crews filming several live performances as well as curating and filming interview, we began the process of editing together a short documentary catered for the global audience. Our hope is that this beautifully shot and edited short piece will cater to Kerli fans and non-fans alike, and act window into the wonderful and imaginative mind of Kerli not just as an artist but an inspiring human being.”
The Interview and DIY
“Kerli did all the makeup on the interview by herself — she had a little case and did her own makeup and wore the artist look she made herself. Kerli wasn’t intimidating as one might expect from an artist of this popularity, she was open and friendly, so all the anxiety was for nothing in the end. After the interview we filmed Kerli performing at another Estonian yearly music event, the Intsikurmu Festival”, says Georgius.
Georgius, the main editor and director of the picture, adds: “In the beginning of 2020 we didn’t know how the documentary would look like, but the pandemic helped free up time to complete the work, and in March, Anastasia and I continued working on the post-production of the film. The process was long, but it was beneficial for us, since now we had all the time in the world to think over things. Kerli also made the project more personal than many of our other projects. In here, the artist’s influence was much bigger — it was more as a collaborative work - a creative process together with the artist directly. The final draft of the film was completed during the summer of 2020, after the first wave of the pandemic had been over, and we could return to the office. Kerli visited us to make sure the film was good :)”
Selecting the Footage — director’s view
“We had an amazing directors’ duo with Georgius. We wanted to combine both male and female energies for the project, so they came together and became as one.” — adds Anastasia Zazhitskaya, the director of the documentary film.
“I was thinking how to form the story, which points and where to put the accents to underline when putting the story together on the editing timeline, and I was also in charge of deciding which themes to include.”
Filming Co-operation
We shot the interviews with Kerli in A CUBE Agency in Tallinn. Widescreen Studios and their director and DOP CJ Kask have been filming and directing previous music videos for Kerli in co-operation with the Visit Estonia brand under their campaign. A lot of the documentary footage has been shared by CJ Kask from Widescreen, and a lot of the behind-the-scenes were filmed by Mart Vares.
“I wanted to show various images of Kerli which would reflect what drives her, her nature, and DIY parts that she did herself. We were definitely impressed and charmed by her. We tried to create the image of her opening up as a flower. It was important for me to help the viewer find answers to their own personal questions, so people would sympathize with her.” — adds Anastasia
Philosophy Behind the Album
Anastasia continues to describe the work process from a philosophical and personal angle: “Kerli mentioned Carl Jung during the interview and it clicked with me, I understood that I needed to work on the edit more and that she was the gate for me to work on my own issues; I hope the audience will also feel the same way. Every person needs to go through their own shadow works. Otherwise, it is a constant struggle unless you realize all of your own dark sides. It might be a long and a very painful process. This is a very contemporary conflict.”
The main point of the project for me is to share knowledge with people. We are happy to meet the people who are interested in creating, and one can fulfill oneself while doing that and feel happy for the person when something turns out right. Ego is not included here at this point.”
“Kerli includes Reiki, Carl Gustav Jung and various esoteric practices in her work. People might have a lot of questions after watching our film. This picture talks about self-development, trying to find the truth, and passing on sacred knowledge from mouth to mouth. One needs to get rid of fears, but only after one realizes these fears; and it feels great once you find others who inspire you, someone with who you may look for answers together. For example, it applies to a relationship with a partner; be it art or a personal relationship. Some people think that the problem is in society but the problem is often in the person. Once you understand that, you can work on yourself.” concludes Anastasia.
Kerli herself helped us direct the documentary, she even made the poster for the film herself and she was very active in taking part in social media updates surrounding the film. This made the portrait documentary production process so much more seamless for the whole of our team here at Vita Pictura. This film is concluding Kerli’s era of “Shadow Works” and we are looking forward to seeing and hearing her next works.
Our team made an effort to send the finished documentary portrait to several festivals around the world and so far we’ve been admitted to the official selection of Feminista Film Festival, Berlin Lift-Off Film Festival, Sweden Film Awards, Stockholm Film & Television Festival, Madrid Film awards, Esoteric International Film Festival, Manchester Lift-Off Film Festival and Short Film Factory.
The documentary film “Shadow Works” is being released as a 3-part micro-series on Kerli’s youtube channel:
This documentary has Estonian, English, Portuguese and Russian subtitles.
Follow Vita Pictura and Kerli to keep yourself up to date with the recent releases and developments.
