BAFTA-nominated British director JAMIE JAY JOHNSON has made short films about the MiniGolf World Championships, holidaying in his bedroom, and Eric the Eel, the slowest swimmer in Olympic history.
But for his first feature film, Sounds Like Teen Spirit, he turned his attention to Junior Eurovision, the world’s biggest annual song contest for young people.
Johnson talks to Movie Mundo about backing losers and shedding tears.
Jamie Jay Johnson at a screening of Sounds Like Teen Spirit at the Ghent Film Festival
MMM: With so many countries and contestants involved in Junior Eurovision, you must have been spoilt for material. How did you choose who to follow?
Johnson: I was shooting with one sound recordist and we just hopped around most of the countries, we went to fourteen in all. We also had a few local crews in three countries. We shot all the national finals, and sometimes we shot stuff before as well, and we just chose the characters we liked the best.
MMM: Were there any disappointments for you along the way… people you wanted to get through to the finals who didn’t?
Johnson: I was so gutted when Bab [from Belgium] didn’t win! Actually, all the characters I liked lost in every country. For example, in Belarus everyone was great, and I remember saying to the sound recordist, ‘I hope anyone wins but that kid’, and obviously he won!
Then I was like, Bab is the one, I feel if she wins it, our film might be saved, we might be able to salvage it. Then she lost! But we went to [Belgium winners] Trust’s house the next day and they were a really nice bunch of kids. Then footage came in from local crews in other countries and suddenly we saw our cast assembling.
Bab from Belgium lost out on a place in the Junior Eurovision finals
MMM: How difficult was it for you to remain objective when you were filming?
Johnson: I don’t think I did a very good job of staying objective to be honest! Like when Marina from Bulgaria was telling me problems with her dad, I started crying. And she was like, ‘Come on Jamie, it’s fine, don’t be an idiot, stop crying.’ So that was kind of funny, getting comforted by this 14-year-old who was living through it.
Then with Eliana, the little sister of Giorgos from Cyprus, when she was saying so earnestly that it was the happiest moment in her life, again I started crying then. And I looked over at her mum, who was next to me, and she was wiping away a tear.
Giorgos from Cyprus on stage
MMM: The kids you follow in the film seem to establish a kind of camaraderie between them. Was that something you encouraged?
Johnson: I’d love to say I did and that I was that smart, but it was just an organic thing. If I’m honest, one of the big reasons we chose the characters was that all of them speak pretty good English, apart from Mariam.
And as I was shooting I realised that if we wanted to tell this emotional story and get under the skin of the kids, it was really important for me to be able to communicate with them. So we chose the ones with good English, and they sort of found each other.
So it was completely organic how they all clubbed together. And there were loads of moments where we’d be playing poker together, and my editor was like, ‘Jamie, you’re such an idiot, why didn’t you get them having a laugh together, and playing poker?’ But I didn’t really think of doing it at the time!
I think Junior Eurovision is a very nurturing environment, and the kids do genuinely have the best week of their lives. They go off on all these museum visits and do all these cultural things, and everybody mixes anyhow.
By film journalist Jan Gilbert
