Johanna Vuoksenmaa

Early life and education

Johanna Vuoksenmaa was born in Hämeenlinna in 21 September 1965. Her mother was a home economics teacher, her father a forestry technician and she also has an older brother, Jorma Vuoksenmaa, born in 1962. Originally she studied photography at the Institute of Design and Fine Arts at Lahti University of Applied Sciences from 1985 to 1989. In 1996 she decided to study scriptwriting and film directing at the School of Arts and Design in Helsinki, where she graduated as a director in 2001. During her time in the School of Arts and Design Vuoksenmaa did not like the pressure that the school put on its students by competing their works with others, she thought that it made the students play safe with their work to do well.

Career

During her time at the Institute of Design and Fine Arts (1985-1989) she worked as a photographer for the Etelä-Suomen Sanomat newspaper and had a photography exhibition at Harju Gallery in Lahti, which was also shown in the Soviet Union. After graduating, she became a teacher of video and photography at the Tampere School of Art where she worked during the evenings and during the day she made art and worked as a successful installation artist for five years. Due to the birth of her two children she went on maternity leave and after she decided to change her career path because she felt that she wasn’t reaching enough audience in the relatively small photography circles: "Even though I was pretty deep in the art world, I never thought I was making aesthetically pleasing things to be put up on walls. I created art to get reactions, to have a conversation with the viewer. I was aiming for interaction and communication but because the small audience of photography exhibitions was always just nodding in agreement, so I began to suspect a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes.” During her time at the School of Arts and Design she wrote and directed a short film Omassa Vuoteessa (Private Parts) in 1997 and was a part of production of numerous other projects. After graduating, she rose to fame in 2003 as a director with the feature film Nousukausi (Upswing) written by Mika Ripatti, which was awarded with the Finnish Jussi-award of the best film of 2004 and Vuoksenmaa was awarded with a certificate honour for her work as a director in the film at the Viitasaari Film Week. She has also worked on numerous television shows as a director and a screenwriter such as the popular comedy on MTV3 Kumman Kaa (2003) and Tahdon Asia (2005) among others. In recent years Vuoksenmaa has written and directed two seasons of the television series Klikkaa Mua (2011) which won five Venla-awards during its first season and its rights were sold to Sweden. She also directed and wrote the film 21 Tapaa Pilata Avioliitto (2013), which was the most watched domestic film in 2013, the most watched film directed by a woman in Finnish film history and won the Jussi-award for the people’s choice film of 2013. In 2014 she wrote and directed the feature film Viikossa Aikuiseksi that premiered in the early 2015.

Awards and nominations

Many of Vuoksenmaa's films have won and been nominated for numerous Finnish film and television awards. In 2008, Vuoksenmaa was part of the panel that chose the films that would be nominated for the Finnish Jussi-award, which is the highest Finnish award for film.

Filmography

Vuoksenmaa prefers to use comedy as a genre in her movies because it helps her to deal with her own misfortunes in life: "Positive, healing and integrative laughter usually comes from seeing the beauty in the ugliness of the story’s character and recognizing yourself in it.” Vuoksenmaa has said that the Danish Dogme 95 –movement has been a source of inspiration in some of her films, but she only wants to use the good sides of the movement. She does not like directing other people’s screenplays, since it does not allow the freedom to change the script during filming.