I’ve been crisscrossing the Planet Earth now for the most part of the year from a premiere here to a festival screening there, all to promote my latest movie Iron Sky The Coming Race, which we spent uh, quite a while to make. While sitting in small airplanes is not what I prefer to do with my life, getting there and screening the film to tens, hundreds, even thousands of fans, friends, freaks and followers makes it definitely worth it. The latest of such trips was the one I’m returning now from to Japan, where we had tons of interviews and a great screening with nearly two hundred fans, signing session and what not, in the promotion to the upcoming Japan premiere.
It’s interesting to see how the film has been received all over the world. Just like the first one, Iron Sky The Coming Race is definitely splitting the opinions of both critics and filmgoers – some find it lovely, to quote one of the recent tweets I came across:
“Things of great surprise: aside from being a tangled spaghetti monster of ludicrous plot points, the sequel to Iron Sky is highly entertaining. Hollow earth, many weird cultural references, and a kick-ass mixed race female protagonist who is here for absolutely none of your shit.”
While others feel differently:
Iron Sky 2 is a truly dreadful movie, but there are circumstances in which it might be appropriate to watch it: Hackney, London.
Goes without saying, nasty critics can hurt, those who “get it” bring me right back up and that’s just pure awesome. And then there are premieres like the one in Japan, which give a whole new meaning to what I love about making these movies. This article, for example, writes very nicely:
“Iron Sky: The Third Empire Strikes Back” A masterpiece fantasy full of science fiction love.
First, we had arranged two full days of interviews – without lying at all, I probably did 30 half-hour interviews in the first two days after arriving in Japan, answering the most creative set of questions from the journalists. Seems like the whole idea of a tech cult like we have in our movie – the Jobsism – really was received well, and they were also curious on how we ended up choosing the historical figures the film proposes. There were magazines that were purely focused on crazy conspiracy theories, and I got to talk to the interviewers about deep end Hollow Earth theories, noticing they had indeed found nearly all of the little tidbits I had managed to hide there for the craziest of us to spot. There were gun magazines, where we spoke about the weapons used in the movie, and of course, film magazines who wanted to know everything about the references, my background in Japanese movies (which I have followed surprisingly much). Also, Obi as a strong leading character was appraised by Japanese media, as well as Udo Kier in his double-role.
The premiere itself was a great success. The reactions were great throughout the movie, and afterward, we had hundreds of fans gathering around, lining up like good Japanese do, for autographs, handing me gifts and taking selfies. The enthusiasm was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, but walking around Tokyo and taking in the entertainment culture there, it does make sense – there is a level of enthusiasm towards music and movies unlike anything we have in Europe – or maybe we’ve had it once, but now, everything is very jaded and cynical. This is, I must admit, a bit depressing atmosphere to make movies, and I do wish there was a way to inject some joy into entertainment culture in Europe.
Not to say I’ve had bad premieres, in Europe – quite the contrary! Our Finnish premiere was a blast, the German premiere was amazing, UK and Switzerland, Brussels and Copenhagen and all those places were just pure fun to screen the film at. There’s still quite a lot of places where the film will open in the coming months – I’m now flying to Prague for Checz premiere, then there’s Slovenian premiere, some festival premieres and of course, the US release that’s coming in July.
But importantly, I guess what I’m trying to say here is: filmmakers, go and screen your film to the audience. Even if it’s for one day, it’s worth taking the time off the calendar and go out there, meet the people and get in the vibes. That’s the most direct, most enthusiastic feedback you will get. It keeps you going, no matter how complicated the film business might sometimes seem.
Anyways, arigato to our Japanese fans and our distributor Twin for the amazing premiere event and great marketing push, the film is coming out in July in Japan, crossing fingers for a great kickoff there!
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