Sundance Film Festival / Prague Short Film Festival 2020 – Bad Hair
Insecure and balding Leo (35) has closed himself in his apartment to try hair growth liquid for fixing up his looks. The liquid causes a series of grotesque metamorphoses with his skin and hair and as Leo tries to get his bodily changes under control the evening quickly turns into chaos.
Interview with Director Oskar Lehemaa
Watch Bad Hair here:
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
Thank you! About seven years ago I drew a hairy eyeball into my notebook and I thought it was a pretty disturbing image. I started to build a story around that picture and it slowly grew into a body horror short about being insecure in your own skin. But the main motivation behind Bad Hair was always to give the audience an intense ride at the cinema.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
Because it’s pretty intense and gross and darkly funny and underneath the hair and pus and blood is perhaps even a tiny message or two.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
I think a lot of people relate to never being quite happy with the person looking back in the mirror. I wanted to take the seemingly mundane cosmetic issue of balding and completely escalate the story around that for gruesome and comedic effect. The protagonist’s hang-up essentially spirals into his own personal hell over the course of one evening.
The design of the body horror in Bad Hair comes from a very personal place. For instance, one transformation stage involves popping pimples, which comes from several teenage years I spent with severe acne. So I absolutely had to pop a few zits on the big screen, there was just no way around that.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
It took years to get this film made, which in hindsight turned out to be a blessing. During that time I constantly whittled down the script to its bare essentials. The first draft was almost 30 pages, it took place all over town, had multiple characters, a clumsy love story and tons of bad dialogue. The final script clocked in at 6,5 pages, takes place in one location over one night with one character and has no dialogue. Having said that, I do hope the next project doesn’t take seven years to make.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The most exciting feedback I get is in the cinema watching the film with an audience. When you feel people squirming in their seats or giggling nervously or jumping at a scare, then you know it works.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
Some men have told me they genuinely relate to the character's struggles - to his anxiety, to him trying yet another shady product, to all the painful procedures in front of the mirror. Even though this reaction was very much designed into the film, it still surprises me that this stuff shines through from beneath all the crazier horror elements.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I hope to get as many eyeballs onto our film as possible! I'm proud of the work our team did and I want audiences from all over the world to see it.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
Hopefully, we show up on festival directors' radars, so Bad Hair can continue travelling in cinemas around the world.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
First and foremost I would like viewers to have a fun experience. And hopefully, the horror helps to sneak ideas of body image and self-confidence to an unsuspecting audience.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Would you shave your eyeball for a few extra hairs on your head?
Would you like to add anything else?
We made Bad Hair in my tiny home country of Estonia, where this is the first true body horror film to date. If audiences buy into the world of our short, it’s only thanks to the ridiculously dedicated cast and crew who worked until their eyes bled to make it all come together. I encourage filmmakers from around the world to film in Estonia because the stuff local actors and crew can pull off here is pretty amazing.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I recently had the Estonian premiere of my feature-length stop motion animation Old Man Cartoon Movie, which we co-wrote and co-directed with my friend Mikk Mägi. It's a wild and raunchy road-movie about an old farmer who has to retrieve his lost cow before the animal's un-milked udder explodes. So yeah, it’s another pretty weird movie. Right now we're still recovering from that production and hoping it will also have a healthy festival run around the world. In the meantime, I’m slowly but steadily working on a couple of feature ideas.
Interview: January 2020
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Bad Hair
Insecure and balding Leo (35) has closed himself in his apartment to try hair growth liquid for fixing up his looks. The liquid causes a series of grotesque metamorphoses with his skin and hair and as Leo tries to get his bodily changes under control the evening quickly turns into chaos.
Length: 14:30
Director: Oskar Lehemaa
Producer: Evelin Penttilä
Writer: Oskar Lehemaa
About the writer, director and producer:
OSKAR LEHEMAA was born in 1988 in Pärnu, Estonia. Growing up in a dull small town, watching action flicks and making silly short films was the perfect escape from reality. Today these passions have become a career, as Oskar infuses his works with a love for genre, from comedy to gory horror. Regardless of the project or genre, there seems to be a common thread – a pinch of humour is always added. He has worked in the Estonian commercial scene for nearly ten years. 2019 saw the culmination of two long-running projects, the short body horror film Bad Hair and his feature debut, the crazy stop motion adventure comedy Old Man Cartoon Movie.
EVELIN PENTTILÄ is a producer based in Tallinn, Estonia. Her selected credits include a feature film and TV series Zero Point (2014), Mihkel (2018), Maria's Paradise (TIFF) 2019, Helene (2020) and short film Bad Hair (Sundance 2020). Evelin is an alumnus of Media Business School MEGA program and EAVE Producer's Workshop. She and was awarded the Nipkow scholarship in 2012.
Key cast: Sten Karpov
Looking for: film festival directors, producers, journalists
Facebook: Bad Hair
Instagram: @badhairshort
Hashtags used: #badhairshort
Other: IMDb
Funders: Estonian Film Institute, Estonian Cultural Endowment, Stellar Film, Kickstarter
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Court Mais Trash International Film Festival, Belgium, 15-19.01.2020; Prague Short Film Festival, Czech, 22-26.01.2020; Minimalen Film Festival, Norway, 21-26.01.2020; Sundance Film Festival, US, 23.01-02.02.2020.