She also adds, “Tove herself is known across Scandinavia through TV interviews that were all shot on 16mm film, so it was most appropriate for our audience to portray her via this familiar-looking medium.”
Filming on Tove took place over 27 often bone-chilling, shooting days during January and February 2020 at locations around Helsinki. A replica of Jansson’s studio apartment was built on the stages at Angel Film Studios in the city. Due to travel restrictions caused by the impeding COVID-19 pandemic, the city of Turku/ Åbo in Finland doubled for sequences in which Jansson goes to live and paint in Paris.
Wassberg worked with Bergroth’s regular camera/lighting crew, who were all Finnish and who, apart from gaffer Aki Karppinen and grip Juha Niskamost, were women, namely focus puller/first AC Elina Eränen and Janina Witkowski second AC. Wassberg’s teenage daughter, Imelda, was employed as a production trainee.
“I had not collaborated with any of the crew before and don’t speak Finnish, so I was a little concerned about how things would go,” Wassberg admits. “But they had all worked with film before, and through a mixture of broken English, Swedish and Danish, plus the positive mood that Zaida created on set, they made me feel at home – things worked out just fine. They were easy-going and always had smiles, even during the coldest, harshest days of winter weather.
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