Lex Julia

Julia travels to her new friend Anna's isolated island summer house, where she recognises Anna's husband as the man who raped her on a date fifteen years earlier.

Julia, in her early thirties, travels to her new friend Anna's island villa for a late-summer weekend. When Anna introduces her husband, JP, Julia recognises him as the man who raped her on a date fifteen years earlier. Both Julia and JP keep their past acquaintance a secret from Anna, who grows increasingly uneasy about the tension between her husband and her new friend. Over the weekend, the simmering conflicts between the trio intensify.

Director's note

Lex Julia

Director’s notes

Theme and motivation
Lex Julia explores the complex dynamics of sexual assault, intertwining three destinies and three different points of view. Julia, the victim of rape, is conflicted. Is it worth opening an old wound, or is it better to stay quiet? When confronted, JP, the alleged rapist, recalls the past as a one-night stand, and persistently questions Julia’s version of the events. Meanwhile Anna, the wife of JP, has to decide whom and what to believe. Was Julia and JP’s encounter a sincere misunderstanding, a careless misjudgement, or a cold-blooded attack? What could, or should be done about it, years later?
Having myself been drugged and date-raped when I was eighteen, I want to make a film that reflects the contradictory, confusing and disturbing real-life experience many victims of rape have – but also shows how charming, highly functioning and “normal” people that rape can be. When I first pitched the idea more than ten years ago, #metoo had not yet happened and people doubted I could discuss something so personal in a film. After #metoo, we’ve seen many stories of trauma on film and television screens, but I’ve found myself still missing a narrative which is more ambiguous and unpredictable in its tone and conclusions.
I’m curious about the destructive and compulsive currents that lead people to transgress moral boundaries – and the strange, dark intimacy that can develop between the victim and the perpetrator. Why do victims often return to their abusers? Is it possible to heal, and get closure? Is predatory, coercive sexuality a product of nature or nurture? Does a character like JP have capacity for regret and change? The deeper theme of the film is the possibility of redemption and new beginnings. Even the worst of traumas can carry a hidden potential, depending on how we deal with them, and the meanings we ascribe to them.

Structure

Dramaturgically, the film is structured around three story-days: the day of arrival corresponds to Act I, the second day with Act II, and the third day with Act III. Dramatic changes of weather, typical to the archipelago setting, accompany this division, with the first day offering glorious, sunny late-Summer sun, the second day building towards a moody storm, and the third day a fresh, calm and clear weather.

Cinematically, the film progresses sequentially towards the key turning points in the story. JP’s surprise return to the island is the inciting incident interrupting the “girls’ weekend” Julia and Anna had been planning. As the evening darkens, the atmosphere changes, from the initial paradise-like calm of the sunny island to a more tense and jarring mood inside the claustrophobic glass-house. Julia spying on her hosts having sex is the plot point that breaks into Act II.

The actions that take place at night and dawn in the story have a dream-like quality. After watching JP and Anna having sex, Julia dreams of a seagull eating a baby duck. Soon after, she is awoken by JP, who takes her on a boat-trip to a kind of a twilight zone – the skies and the sea painted in pinks and reds. Julia follows JP in some kind of a trance. What is she hoping for? Isn’t she afraid to trust him? Julia’s attempt to confront JP is the next turning point in the story, giving the audience a clue as to why she behaves strangely around JP.

Once the sun is up again, the dreamlike spell is broken. Anna realises something is going on between JP and Julia, and seeks answers but is denied them. In the sauna, Julia finally reveals she was raped when she was young – this is the midpoint of the story. From there we build to the first climax – the crayfish dinner scene – where Julia accuses JP of raping her. The cinematic language employed changes dramatically at this point, with the storm and rain outside, choppier editing, and handheld camera. The women fighting, JP and Anna fighting, all three characters separated from each other, we are at the Dark Night of the Soul part of the film – the lowest point for each of the characters; with the most uncertainty, the most unanswered questions.

The dark night ends after JP and Julia have their confrontation, culminating in Julia’s fall down the stairs and injury. Julia is physically and spiritually transformed from a victim to a “witch” while dancing ecstatically on a slippery cliff edge. Meanwhile Anna confronts JP, demanding him to take responsibility. JP avoids the opportunity, instead escaping to his mancave/shed to lick his wounds.

The final act begins with Julia “reborn”, waking on the beach. She appears like a wild woman with bloody hair and torn clothes, erratic and unpredictable. She acts more impulsively than before, entering JP’s shed, considering stabbing him with a scalpel, but instead stabbing a stuffed seagull. Her strangeness drives the other characters towards the final confrontation of the film. When JP wants to drive Julia off the island with a rifle, Anna takes over. At rifle-point, Julia offers her final “testimony” about the rape. Anna understands that JP’s body language and quiet suggest culpability.

The resolution of the story is complete with the women burning the stuffed seagulls on a bonfire, with JP leaving the island in the background. While JP’s punishment is facing his shame in isolation, Julia and Anna are cleansed by the primordial waters, suggesting the possibility of a rebirth; a new beginning.

Visual approach

To balance the emotionally heavy and challenging subject matter I want to draw the viewers in with aesthetic pleasure. The film will open with wider shots, showing the characters in relation to the environment – both manmade and natural. The camera will move subtly on a dolly, observing the characters as they arrive on the island. The camera feels objective, the lighting is naturalist. Gradually visual details like the hanging rabbit and the stuffed seagulls break this illusion of harmony, guiding the viewer to a more subjective space. We will use camera as Julia’s point of view at times, for example lingering on JP’s hands as he prepares the marinated rabbit for dinner.

The dining scenes in the film take inspiration from classic still lives, but modernised by the use of contemporary colours and minimalist tableware. Here, the camera captures the relationship between the characters – showing the growing distance and suspicions between them. In the key scenes where dialogue has the most prominent role – for example, Julia telling Anna in the sauna how she was raped – the camera is still and close to the actor’s face, so that the complete focus of the audience is drawn towards what the character has to say.

The choice of camera movement is led by the emotion of the scenes throughout the film – varying according to the shifts in emotional register. After the crayfish dinner scene where the rape allegation is made, camera shifts to handheld to match the intensity of emotions as Anna runs off the table and Julia and her have their altercation. The framing is tighter, the editing faster, the compositions less balanced and frames containing more black. We stay in this restless, subjective and kinetic mode until the end of the second night of the story. The final morning, when Julia wakes on the beach with the wound on her head, we return to a more objective camera, slightly further away from the characters, on the dolly. A new order has been established and the viewers are invited to take a more objective look at the story again.

In terms of lighting, the cinematographer Malte Rosenfeld and I are very inspired by classic chiaroscuro as exemplified by Baroque painters Caravaggio and Gentileschi. In their works, extreme high contrasts between light and dark create a heightened dramatic impact. The dominance of the darkness in the images creates an intimacy between the viewer and the subject; a cocoon that invites the eye to rest in the image. The overall impact of these paintings is visceral; they speak directly to the body, not the mind. We will translate this approach to Lex Julia particularly in the night-time scenes and as the story progresses to its emotional climax. We are particularly interested in seeing parts of faces and bodies, while other parts remain obscured in black; and characters walking in and out of blackness.

For set design, we are inspired by Guy Bourdin, the French surrealist photographer known for his fashion editorials that combine themes of violence and seduction. Bourdin used a bold, restricted colour palette, hard light and prominent shadows to create disturbing, dreamlike atmospheres. We want to employ similar tools to accentuate the subjective elements of storytelling in Lex Julia.

Of the cinematic canon, we will reference the spirit of film noir: the exploration of the shadows of human psyche, nightmarish obsessions, and tragic consequences of succumbing to one’s darker instincts. Many of the 1960s classics also inspire us with their unflinching portrayals of amorality. The sun-soaked, beautiful bodies of La Piscine and Plein Soleil hide dark secrets, while the islands in Bergman’s Persona and Antonioni’s L’avventura provide a fitting backdrops to the characters’ psychological detachment and isolation. More contemporary visual references include Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals for its use of chiaroscuro, and David Lynch’s Lost Highway, for its marriage of noir and surrealism in mood, subject and visual design.

Sound & music

The natural soundscape of the island setting provides rich material to support the shifts in the mood of the film. The everyday sounds that at first appear pleasant and reassuring, such as waves lapping gently against the pier, or screaming seagulls, will gradually turn more menacing: the roar of the boat engine becomes deafening, the ladder to the bird tower creaks dangerously, and the stormy waves beat the rocks violently.

In contrast, the house where JP and Anna live is strangely soundless and lifeless. It’s only when a door or a window is opened, that some life creeps in. This accentuates the incidental sounds like the abrupt pop of the champagne cork, the clinking of glasses, stirring of coffee and cocktails, and peeling of crayfish, emphasizing the moments of conflict that are veiled beneath the civilized rituals.

The creative use of sound and music provides a particularly rich opportunity to communicate emotion and the characters’ subjective experience. To this end, I envisage exaggerating sounds at points of emotional anguish, to help audience identify with Julia. For example, when Julia overhears JP and Anna having sex at night, or when JP surprises Julia on the boat by telling her he wishes they could go back in time, Julia gets lost in a subjective soundscape – the sounds become louder, then fade into the background, as she sinks into her memories. Julia also suffers from tinnitus: hear ears start ringing at moments of extreme stress.

Music has a prominent role in the film as a way to reveal the characters’ tastes, backstories and varying states of mind. We are introduced to Julia through the music she listens to in her headphones – a mix of gothwave, darkwave and post-punk with restless pulse, repetitive basslines and screaming female voices. By contrast, we catch a glimpse of JP’s inner workings through the vintage jazz he listens to. The 1940s jazz standard “Moon and Sand” in particular is featured in multiple variations. The soft, undulating rhythm and romantic melody and lyrics are a direct counterpoint to the violent tension between the characters.

I’m very inspired by the film scores of composer Michael Small (Klute, Stepford Wifes) because of his use of obsessively repeating themes and rhythms, use of dissonance and a small number of acoustic instruments. Estonian composer Liisa Hirsch has been selected to score Lex Julia because of her wonderful sensitivity in creating rich and subtle soundscapes that utilise both physical instruments, electronic tools and field recordings. With Liisa we are planning to use the natural sounds of the island, from seagull screams to waves and the wind, to create a subtly menacing score to underline the strong emotions of the film.

Casting
The casting process of Lex Julia has organically led us to expand beyond Finland in the search for the best possible fit for the roles. The Estonian Rea Lest (“Julia”) has courage, gravity and depth that few actors of her age have, while the Swedish Christian Hillborg (“JP”) has the capacity to effortlessly vacillate between a boyish charm, playfulness and vulnerability, and a chilling coldness and calculating intelligence. Meanwhile Finnish-Swedish Jessica Grabowsky (“Anna”) brings in exceptional sensitivity and an intuitive presence, with some darker and more impulsive undertones. The chemistry among this trio is palpable and I’m convinced it will translate into exceptional performances.

Producer's note

About the theme
LEX JULIA is in a way a traditional suspense drama with three characters stuck in one place where truths come out, but Lex Julia is much more complex and nuanced. The two women, Julia and Anna have known each other for a while. When Julia enters the island and finally meets Anna’s husband, JP, she realizes that Anna’s husband has date raped her when she was 18 years old. Julia is shocked, and angry and does not really know how to react. JP recognizes Julia as well. They need to speak, but without Anna’s presence. JP thinks they just had one night’s stand, normal sex, Julia says it was rape. Anna starts to suspect that there is something romantic going on between those two. This leads to the situation that Julia needs to tell the truth to Anna, even though she knows it will hurt Anna very deeply, or just go away. Questions like who has the “right” memories, is there just one truth and who has the right to the truth raises up?

About artistic values and motivation
We have known the writer-director Laura Hyppönen for many years and followed her career and in spring of 2021 she contacted me (Merja Ritola) with her screenplay for Lex Julia. I read it and I was thrilled about it. The concept of the film is very smart and relevant. The screenplay has an underlying sharpness and urgency to it which works very well. The writing flows nicely and the structure is excellent. Its characters are complex and well developed and the theme is of crucial importance. Lex Julia is an essential contemporary film project, meticulously dissecting emotional, romantic, and psychological complexities. It resonates deeply with women across the Western world, exploring themes of shame and confusion. Through a well-crafted narrative, it confronts pivotal questions about happiness, romantic success, love, desires, and needs. The film prompts viewers to grapple with the inherent contradictions of human existence, seeking answers alongside its characters in a journey of self-discovery.

The film begins with images of a paradise, the sky and sea bright blue, the trees on the island a lush deep green. A ferry crosses the waters, bringing Julia, a stranger in black, to paradise. Inside a house, which in its isolation and minimalism resembles a fortress, despite its glass walls, the house is shady and dark. Outside, we hear the screaming seagulls circle the house – hoping for scraps, perhaps, or sensing the impending doom of the couple. As the story progresses, the shadows grow longer and the darkness spreads. The growing anguish of the characters is reflected in the rough nature of the Finnish archipelago, and the dark house feels increasingly claustrophobic. The cracks in paradise deepen, until we arrive in hell: the nightmare of facing the person who damaged you; the nightmare of realizing the person you trusted is not who you thought they were; the nightmare of your past sins catching up to you. At the journey’s end, there is a glimmer of hope. While JP runs away by his boat Julia and Anna are swimming in the bright sea and the sun is shining.

As you can read above visually the film will utilize high contrasts between light and dark to evoke heightened drama. Dominance of darkness fosters intimacy between viewer and subject. A restricted color palette, minimal set design, and strong shadows will create a stylized, mysterious world, suggestive of underlying darkness. It embodies the spirit of film noir, delving into our psyche's shadows, nightmarish obsessions, and tragic consequences of darker instincts. Influences from 1960s classics, like La Piscine and Persona, inspire the director's vision, depicting amorality and psychological detachment. Contemporary references include Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals and David Lynch’s Lost Highway, blending noir with surrealism.
In terms of sound, the natural island setting provides rich material to shape the film's mood. Everyday sounds initially seem pleasant but gradually turn menacing: gentle waves morph into roaring waves, seagulls' cries become ominous, and creaking ladders and stormy waves intensify the atmosphere.
Lex Julia delves into the critical and deeply relevant issue of date rape, shining a light on the societal structures that enable sexual violence and the persistent struggles of survivors seeking recognition and justice. As we all know horrible real-life cases, such as Gisèle Pelicot's courageous battle to hold her abusers accountable during one of France's most harrowing rape trials.
Pelicot’s decision to waive her anonymity and open the trial to public scrutiny was a powerful act of defiance against rape culture and victim shaming. Her words, “I wanted all of society to be a witness,” resonate with our film’s mission to foster dialogue and empathy. She reminded us of the countless unrecognized victims whose stories remain hidden and underscored the need for a future built on respect and mutual understanding.
Through Lex Julia, we aim to confront uncomfortable truths, challenge societal perceptions, and encourage a collective commitment to a more equitable and compassionate world. This story is not only timely but necessary, as the fight for justice and dignity continues.
Unique Selling Points
Like the cinema industry nowadays prefers international co-productions, we also believe that it helps us to get a wider audience for the film. As the topic of the film (unfortunately) is universal and not so “easy-going”, international co-production also helps to get attention from the audience worldwide. We also aim to create an international impact campaign around the film. Lex Julia has received a strong response internationally from an early stage of development, including being listed as a "buzz" project by Variety after we presented it at the Finnish Film Affair in Helsinki 2021, and several A-list film festival selectors have taken notice of Lex Julia, including San Sebastian (Roberto Cueto), Director's Fortnight (Gabriella Trujillo) and Venice Festival's Renata Santoro. In Santoro's words, "Lex Julia is one of the most promising projects among those selected for Tallinn this year (2021) and has great festival potential thanks to its provocative - perhaps controversial - subject matter, which is treated with a very perceptive and intelligent approach and from an original perspective.” Lex Julia has attracted interest from leading international sales agents and distributors alike (written confirmation in the annexes), which further confirms to us the universality of the story.

Since the topic of the film is very personal for the director, she wants to make a film that reflects the disturbing reality of acquaintance rape. The dissonance between what one may understand as rape – involving violence and a stranger – and the reality of many victims’ experience – an assault by someone you know – is deeply unsettling. Therefore, she wants to appeal to the emotions of the viewers and draw them in with elements of mystery and psychological suspense: an atmospheric, visceral and visually stylized journey into the dark side of the human psyche.
That is why we found the film very attractive and with huge potential from the marketing perspective: it is this luring combination of darkness, compassion, contradiction, and mystery – with strong social importance.

Target Audience and comparable titles
The target audience is active cinemagoers and fans of psychological dramas aged 20-54, mainly women, including couples.
The second target group is young adults aged 16-30, especially men aged 20-40. The film therefore aims to reach both young and middle-aged people, who are the audience for European and international art house cinema and who follow the debates and movements on social media (such as #MeToo).

Of recent films, Isabella Eklöf’s Sundance-winning HOLIDAY (Denmark-Sweden-The Netherlands, 2018) and Ninja Thyberg’s PLEASURE (2021) offer strong comparable titles for Lex Julia in terms of their crystal-clear, focused storytelling and hard-hitting social impact with strong international audience appeal.

International co-production markets and workshops:
With Lex Julia we have been selected for the Finnish Film Affair in Helsinki (2021), Baltic Event Co-Production Forum in Tallinn (2021), 37°South Market (Melbourne IFF, 2022), Film London PFM (2022) and CIRCLE Fiction Orbit (2023). Following these markets/workshops we have received a huge amount of interest from various sales agents, film festivals and of course found our co-producers.

The aim is to get the film into A-list festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Locarno, San Sebastian, Berlinale, Sundance, Toronto, etc.

Screenwiter's note

Subjects:
friendship, harrassment, MeToo, women, abuse, sexual abuse