Staff Pick Premiere: "Get Ready With Me” by Jonatan Etzler

Ina curates videos at Vimeo. She also host screenings with some of her favorite films and has programmed at a number of film festival. @pira.ina on Instagram.
Ina Pira

This week’s Staff Pick Premiere —“Get Ready With Me” by filmmaker Jonatan Etzler — is a chilling psychological thriller centered around a teenage student vying for internet fame at the expense of her tormented teacher.

The film deals with social media, which has become so ubiquitous for younger generations that nearly all stories about them now include it. From a survey of recent Staff Picks, we see the empowering role social media can play in documentaries like “Share” by Ellie Wen and Barna Szász, and the distorted sense of intimacy it can create in films like “Pocket” by Mishka Kornai and Zach Wechter.

Embedded in all of these films is an understanding that for teens, being able to tell a compelling story online is a skill that’s often directly linked to social status. But what happens when these skills are used for manipulation? And what impact does hunger for likes have on mental health? “Get Ready with Me” can be unsettling as it forces us to reconsider our own feelings at every turn. But ultimately, the film offers one of the most clever examinations we’ve seen on the topic to-date. 

Winner of the Gold prize at the 2018 Student Academy Awards®, “Get Ready with Me” is now available online, exclusively on Vimeo. In honor of today’s premiere, we reached out director Jonatan Etzler to learn more. (Warning: Sensitive content ahead.)

On finding real-life inspiration: 

“I made ‘Get Ready With Me’ as a graduation film at Stockholm University of the Arts, together with the writers Amanda Högberg and Axel Nygren, and the producer Johan Lundström. We developed the story based on an idea I had for a scene a couple of years ago, when I was teaching filmmaking for teens. At the time, there was a group of kids who made a disturbing film about suicide, and I didn’t know how to handle the situation. That experience inspired the piece, and Amanda and Axel turned it into a great storyline and script.”

On the power of storytelling:

“I was drawn to the idea of making a dark, meta film, where a character uses the power of the moving image as a weapon. Film is a powerful tool, and because of social media, we’re now in a time when everybody’s a filmmaker. What happens next?”

On the challenges of casting: 

“We had great difficulty casting for Vendela’s role. We tried 40 different child actors until Miriam Benthe — she was the only one left. She lives in Brussels and we were in Stockholm, so we had to fly her to Stockholm to do an audition. She hadn’t done that much before, but she turned out to be a huge talent. It’s always difficult to direct children and make them feel safe to improvise in a realistic way. We were very lucky with our actors.”

On shooting the choir scene: 

“Shooting the scene with the children’s choir singing the traditional Swedish Lucia song was really challenging. The candles and the smoke machine set the fire alarm off. We had fire trucks with firefighters interrupting the shoot every other minute. Of course we had turned off the alarm before, but it went off anyway…”

On raising awareness: 

We can’t really know the effects of the social media revolution yet, but I think it definitely has an impact on our mental health. Anybody’s photos and videos can be sent to half of the population of the Earth in a second. These photos and videos can also be commented, liked, or shared by others in that same second. What changes will this bring for us? We know now what happens when the president gets a Twitter account, but nobody knows what will happen next. I hope people will see the film and then take a step back and look at themselves. I hope people will question themselves and question the world. In doing so, I hope we’ll find a way to cope.”

On advice for aspiring filmmakers: 

“My advice is to watch a lot of films, old and new. Watch them for your own enjoyment (not as if you’re studying them), and then get a camera and start making. The best way to learn is by going through the process many times; this also means you’ll fail a lot of times. You probably won’t be accepted at any big festivals in the beginning, but all of the successful filmmakers that I’ve met have one thing in common: they don’t give up. I’ve made films since I was 13 years old (in 2001). This year, I finally started getting paid to be a director.”

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