Mitja Okorn is an ambitious writer and director who has wrapped up filming his latest movie, Life In a Year. We caught up with him to discuss the film and his experience working with Jaden Smith and Cara Delevingne.
The Knockturnal: What convinced you to direct this film?
Mitja Okorn: The first thing that always convinces me to do something is a good script that either makes me laugh out loud or cry, and the second thing is the people I’m going to make the movie with. In this case, the producer I was working with on a daily basis was amazing – Clarence Hammond –and the entire company – Overbrook – was fantastic. It was the perfect package. I cried when I read the script, and I got along well with my producers.
The Knockturnal: How would you describe the experience working with Jaden Smith & Cara Delevingne?
Mitja Okorn: An amazing experience! You can do anything you want with them. They’re so flexible, funny, hardworking, and all-around nice people, so it’s easy to work with them. I love street smart actors, and they can do it all, then you add a good script to that, and you only need to guide them a little bit to stay on the right track. For example, Cara is such a strong individual and wanted to portray the character of Isabelle in that fashion. But at one point, I told her that the strongest people are also not afraid to show their weakness, emotions, and let their guard down sometimes. I wanted her to be weak in certain moments to show how strong she really is, and I feel that made her character so much more real. With Jaden, he was raised and brought up in such a wholesome way, that he sometimes has a hard time going against an older person or an authority figure, because he’s so respectful and attentive to others. That meant I sometimes had to tell him to be a little more like a teenager and stand up to his parents and some other characters in the movie. It was beautiful to witness how he couldn’t scream at his mother in the film, played by Nia Long, even though the scene asked for that. Obviously, he did it perfectly at the end but he’s just such a nice person, and this was simply stronger than him.
The Knockturnal: Do you think that the audience can identify with the main characters?
Mitja Okorn: The audience are the ones who should answer this question, but I sure do hope they can identify with the main characters on some level. Love and hate are universal themes in life. We all fall in love at some point, and we’re all searching for what we want to do in life and so many of us have parents who have certain expectations of us, and we have to live under that pressure and eventually break away from that; finding what we want to do in life and pursue that, putting our whole heart into it. That I feel, is a very relatable theme, especially for the younger audience. For the older audience, the theme of trying to raise your child correctly and wanting the best for them is something every parent is dealing with, thinking what should they do for their children to grow up to be responsible and self-sufficient. We all want to raise our children like that, but nobody knows exactly how to do that, and there’s always a danger of pushing your kids too hard in certain directions, which can then have the opposite effect. I was always a rebel as a child, and my parents allowed me to try everything. They even offered me to try a beer when I was young, but because I was a rebel, I didn’t want to try it. I wanted to do the opposite of what they wanted me to do, and to this day I have never tried alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, nothing. If my parents forbade me from trying alcohol, the outcome probably would have been different. It’s a very complicated thing to raise a child, which is another relatable theme in this movie, shown through Daryn’s father, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. He wants only the best for his son, but he’s trying so hard that he forgets to listen what Daryn actually wants in life, and is pushing him away.
The Knockturnal: What was your favorite scene to direct?
Mitja Okorn: SPOILER ALERT: the scene where Isabelle dies. It was a scene that was nerve-racking for many different reasons. One being, the dramatic conclusion of the love story that I really wanted to nail perfectly. Second, Jada Pinkett Smith was on the set that day, which made me even more nervous. What made this scene my favorite to direct was Jaden who, at the beginning of the shot started screaming and going crazy, preparing himself emotionally. Then, he laid down in bed and delivered the scene which felt like magic, and it was really nice having Jada there supporting us as well, making the experience of directing this scene even better.
The Knockturnal: Were there any problems that came up during filming?
Mitja Okorn: There are always problems during filming- on all films. That’s something you can’t control. Making movies is solving one huge problem after the other. Maybe a better question would be if there was a day where we didn’t have any problems.
The Knockturnal: What made you decide on Jaden Smith and Cara Delevingne for the roles of Daryn and Isabelle?
Mitja Okorn: Jaden was attached to the project from the very beginning, but for the role of Isabelle, we knew we needed somebody amazing to bring the character to life. Finding a great actress who can do that made us a little nervous. My assistant brought Cara Delevingne to my attention, and I have to shamefully admit that at that time I didn’t know who she was. But, maybe that’s a good thing, because when I started to Google her and watch her movies, what really sold me on her was when I found all the “Top Ten Funniest Moments of Cara” videos on YouTube. She was beatboxing, playing drums, guitar, being hilarious, and I just fell in love with her. I wanted to explore that crazy energy and show it in Life in a Year. After I found her, I couldn’t imagine anybody else but Cara playing that role. Thankfully, Cara felt the same way after she read the script, so the love for the project was mutual.
The Knockturnal: How did you direct the cinematography in this film?
Mitja Okorn: From the very beginning, I said I don’t want this film to look too polished, glossy, mechanical, and overall fake like so many movies in that genre feel and look. I wanted the movie to be real, to be a little gritty and dirty. I wanted the movie to have this edgy energy that Isabelle has, to feel like real life, and I think we succeeded in that.
The Knockturnal: What do you want your audience to take from this movie?
Mitja Okorn: The most important thing to me is that the audience enjoys the movie and laughs and cries the same way I did when I first read the script, the same way Will Smith cried on our first table read, and the same way people always cried when we screen-tested the film. So, if people cry watching the movie, it means they care for the characters, their journey, and their story. I’ve been checking the responses to the movie online for the last few weeks, and I see so many comments saying they want to experience the love Daryn has in the movie, and live their life to the fullest, because you only live once, and you never know when something bad can happen, like Isabelle getting sick. I love it when I read things like that.
The Knockturnal: What inspired you to become a director?
Mitja Okorn: I was a skateboarder, and at some point, my friends and I decided we wanted to see how our tricks looked on video. I took my father’s huge camera and started filming us. Soon, I realized I was way better with a film camera than with a skateboard, and filmmaking became my first love. On top of that, my second love was music. When I edited our skateboard clips together with music, it all culminated in the ultimate love. I realized I wanted to be a director.
The Knockturnal: Could you describe the work you’ve done on your first film, Tu pa Tam?
Mitja Okorn: After I made a lot of skateboard films, we decided to make a feature film. Everybody was telling us this is harder than we think and discouraged us from trying. When you’re young and you have no experience, you don’t see any obstacles, and people telling us not to make a movie just made me want to do it more. I took all my friends and family, and we made a feature film for two-thousand dollars. Back then there were no digital projectors in the cinemas, so we had to blow the film up to 35mm, which cost 30,000 dollars. I had no other choice, so I went to loan sharks and borrowed money from them, hoping they wouldn’t break my legs if the movie didn’t perform well. Thankfully, the movie became the biggest hit in my home country of Slovenia, and they didn’t have to break my legs.
The Knockturnal: What was it like to work on Listy do M (Letters to Santa)?
Mitja Okorn: When I came to Poland, I didn’t know a word of the Polish language, and I had to learn it quickly and bluff my way through the TV series I made there, which became a huge success. After that they asked me to direct a feature film, Letters to Santa, which became the fifth most-watched film in the last 30 years of Polish cinema, and an instant Christmas classic, next to Home Alone. Letters to Santa is now a big franchise, and they’re still doing sequels to this day. That movie landed on the desk of my US agents, Frank and Greg, and opened the doors to Hollywood for me. The first script my agents ever sent me was Life in a Year.
The Knockturnal: How would you describe working in Hollywood in comparison to working in Slovenia?
Mitja Okorn: There’s no comparison. Hollywood is the biggest film industry in the world, and the film industry in Slovenia is almost nonexistent. I mean only three movies are made there per year, and that’s in a good year. And all the movies are the same boring films about nothing, made always by the same people, funded by the government. But in Poland, there’s a big market for filmmakers, and they make hundreds of movies and TV series every year, so I guess you can compare those two markets. The difference between “Pollywood” and “Hollywood” is that filmmaking in Poland is a little bit more relaxed and you can make things easier, faster, and cheaper. On the other hand, in Hollywood, there’s a lot of rules, unions, and complications that make the filmmaking process harder, longer, and more expensive. You have five people doing the job that in Poland you would only have one person doing. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, because film language is universal. It all comes down to a great script full of emotions, and surrounding yourself with good people to work with. And thank God I had both on Life in a Year.
The Knockturnal: What are your plans for your next movie?
Mitja Okorn: First, I want to enjoy the release of this movie. I want to if I can quote my film, “Live in the moment and love every moment” of the release of Life in a Year, which means me scrolling through every single comment on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok. I want to talk about the movie with amazing people like you. Second, I just finished producing the first Polish Netflix Original Feature film called All My Friends are Dead which is going to be released on the 28th of December. I have a script ready for my dream passion project about the first two European basketball players in the NBA. They both came from Yugoslavia – which is the country I was born in. One is a Serbian, Vlade Divac, who played for the Los Angeles Lakers, and the other is a Croatian, Drazen Petrovic, who played for the Nets. They were best friends who became enemies when the war in Yugoslavia broke out between Serbia and Croatia. It’s going to be another heartwarming tearjerker.
