The Festival de Málaga screened Valoa Valoa Valoa, the new film by the Finnish director Inari Niemi, who adapted the novel of the same name written in 2011 by Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen after being 'fascinated' by reading it. 

The director explained in a discussion after the screening at Cine Albéniz that what captivated her about Huotarinen’s novel was the way in which the roles of the two main characters were written. 

'Huotarinen really captured the paradox of adolescence, in that space-time where you’re dealing with grown-up issues like romantic love, sex and the cruel injustice of life, but at the same time without the power to make your own decisions and choices. It’s still dependent on the goodwill of another person, and it turns out that’s something that Mimi (the protagonist) hasn’t had in a long time', she said.

In the spring of 1986, an explosion takes place in Chernobyl and a girl named Mimi (Anni Iikkanen) arrives in a small village in western Finland. She immediately fills 15-year-old Mariia’s (Rebekka Baer) life with light. Mariia returns home 20 years later to care for her ailing mother, and memories of that meaningful summer begin to surface.
Along this line, the young director pointed out that, although the Chernobyl disaster was something that already featured in the novel, it has also been used here as an 'excuse' to keep the secret between the two girls. The incident is used as a way of inventing the connection between them: 'The radiation, that they are different from the others, and that nobody wants to take care of them', she added.

She also said that working with the teenage actresses has been a 'luxury', and that it’s an 'easier' task to work with teenagers than with 'already established' actors. 'The way they’ve opened up and been willing to show their emotions has been incredible. I also think it’s because young people are more used to cameras, so they forgot they were being filmed and they were themselves at all times, and that’s when the real emotion comes out', he said. 

That’s why the method the director also uses when directing the actors is to have a conversation with them beforehand, where she tells them to react as they would in real life, instead of going through so many rehearsals.