Producers' note

About the theme
LEX JULIA is in a way a traditional suspense drama with three characters stuck in one place where truths come out, but Lex Julia is much more complex and nuanced. The two women, Julia and Anna have known each other for a while. When Julia enters the island and finally meets Anna’s husband, JP, she realizes that Anna’s husband has date raped her when she was 18 years old. Julia is shocked, and angry and does not really know how to react. JP recognizes Julia as well. They need to speak, but without Anna’s presence. JP thinks they just had one night’s stand, normal sex, Julia says it was rape. Anna starts to suspect that there is something romantic going on between those two. This leads to the situation that Julia needs to tell the truth to Anna, even though she knows it will hurt Anna very deeply, or just go away. Questions like who has the “right” memories, is there just one truth and who has the right to the truth raises up?

About artistic values and motivation
We have known the writer-director Laura Hyppönen for many years and followed her career and in spring of 2021 she contacted me (Merja Ritola) with her screenplay for Lex Julia. I read it and I was thrilled about it. The concept of the film is very smart and relevant. The screenplay has an underlying sharpness and urgency to it which works very well. The writing flows nicely and the structure is excellent. Its characters are complex and well developed and the theme is of crucial importance. Lex Julia is an essential contemporary film project, meticulously dissecting emotional, romantic, and psychological complexities. It resonates deeply with women across the Western world, exploring themes of shame and confusion. Through a well-crafted narrative, it confronts pivotal questions about happiness, romantic success, love, desires, and needs. The film prompts viewers to grapple with the inherent contradictions of human existence, seeking answers alongside its characters in a journey of self-discovery.

The film begins with images of a paradise, the sky and sea bright blue, the trees on the island a lush deep green. A ferry crosses the waters, bringing Julia, a stranger in black, to paradise. Inside a house, which in its isolation and minimalism resembles a fortress, despite its glass walls, the house is shady and dark. Outside, we hear the screaming seagulls circle the house – hoping for scraps, perhaps, or sensing the impending doom of the couple. As the story progresses, the shadows grow longer and the darkness spreads. The growing anguish of the characters is reflected in the rough nature of the Finnish archipelago, and the dark house feels increasingly claustrophobic. The cracks in paradise deepen, until we arrive in hell: the nightmare of facing the person who damaged you; the nightmare of realizing the person you trusted is not who you thought they were; the nightmare of your past sins catching up to you. At the journey’s end, there is a glimmer of hope. While JP runs away by his boat Julia and Anna are swimming in the bright sea and the sun is shining.

As you can read above visually the film will utilize high contrasts between light and dark to evoke heightened drama. Dominance of darkness fosters intimacy between viewer and subject. A restricted color palette, minimal set design, and strong shadows will create a stylized, mysterious world, suggestive of underlying darkness. It embodies the spirit of film noir, delving into our psyche's shadows, nightmarish obsessions, and tragic consequences of darker instincts. Influences from 1960s classics, like La Piscine and Persona, inspire the director's vision, depicting amorality and psychological detachment. Contemporary references include Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals and David Lynch’s Lost Highway, blending noir with surrealism.
In terms of sound, the natural island setting provides rich material to shape the film's mood. Everyday sounds initially seem pleasant but gradually turn menacing: gentle waves morph into roaring waves, seagulls' cries become ominous, and creaking ladders and stormy waves intensify the atmosphere.
Lex Julia delves into the critical and deeply relevant issue of date rape, shining a light on the societal structures that enable sexual violence and the persistent struggles of survivors seeking recognition and justice. As we all know horrible real-life cases, such as Gisèle Pelicot's courageous battle to hold her abusers accountable during one of France's most harrowing rape trials.
Pelicot’s decision to waive her anonymity and open the trial to public scrutiny was a powerful act of defiance against rape culture and victim shaming. Her words, “I wanted all of society to be a witness,” resonate with our film’s mission to foster dialogue and empathy. She reminded us of the countless unrecognized victims whose stories remain hidden and underscored the need for a future built on respect and mutual understanding.
Through Lex Julia, we aim to confront uncomfortable truths, challenge societal perceptions, and encourage a collective commitment to a more equitable and compassionate world. This story is not only timely but necessary, as the fight for justice and dignity continues.
Unique Selling Points
Like the cinema industry nowadays prefers international co-productions, we also believe that it helps us to get a wider audience for the film. As the topic of the film (unfortunately) is universal and not so “easy-going”, international co-production also helps to get attention from the audience worldwide. We also aim to create an international impact campaign around the film. Lex Julia has received a strong response internationally from an early stage of development, including being listed as a "buzz" project by Variety after we presented it at the Finnish Film Affair in Helsinki 2021, and several A-list film festival selectors have taken notice of Lex Julia, including San Sebastian (Roberto Cueto), Director's Fortnight (Gabriella Trujillo) and Venice Festival's Renata Santoro. In Santoro's words, "Lex Julia is one of the most promising projects among those selected for Tallinn this year (2021) and has great festival potential thanks to its provocative - perhaps controversial - subject matter, which is treated with a very perceptive and intelligent approach and from an original perspective.” Lex Julia has attracted interest from leading international sales agents and distributors alike (written confirmation in the annexes), which further confirms to us the universality of the story.

Since the topic of the film is very personal for the director, she wants to make a film that reflects the disturbing reality of acquaintance rape. The dissonance between what one may understand as rape – involving violence and a stranger – and the reality of many victims’ experience – an assault by someone you know – is deeply unsettling. Therefore, she wants to appeal to the emotions of the viewers and draw them in with elements of mystery and psychological suspense: an atmospheric, visceral and visually stylized journey into the dark side of the human psyche.
That is why we found the film very attractive and with huge potential from the marketing perspective: it is this luring combination of darkness, compassion, contradiction, and mystery – with strong social importance.

Target Audience and comparable titles
The target audience is active cinemagoers and fans of psychological dramas aged 20-54, mainly women, including couples.
The second target group is young adults aged 16-30, especially men aged 20-40. The film therefore aims to reach both young and middle-aged people, who are the audience for European and international art house cinema and who follow the debates and movements on social media (such as #MeToo).

Of recent films, Isabella Eklöf’s Sundance-winning HOLIDAY (Denmark-Sweden-The Netherlands, 2018) and Ninja Thyberg’s PLEASURE (2021) offer strong comparable titles for Lex Julia in terms of their crystal-clear, focused storytelling and hard-hitting social impact with strong international audience appeal.

International co-production markets and workshops:
With Lex Julia we have been selected for the Finnish Film Affair in Helsinki (2021), Baltic Event Co-Production Forum in Tallinn (2021), 37°South Market (Melbourne IFF, 2022), Film London PFM (2022) and CIRCLE Fiction Orbit (2023). Following these markets/workshops we have received a huge amount of interest from various sales agents, film festivals and of course found our co-producers.

The aim is to get the film into A-list festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Locarno, San Sebastian, Berlinale, Sundance, Toronto, etc.