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This week, I got to sit down with Sakaris Stórá, co-writer and director of The Last Paradise on Earth, which premiered early this year at the Göteborg Film Festival in Sweden and is now playing here at HIFF. The Last Paradise on Earth is a tender story of Kári, a young man living in the Faroe Islands whose entire world is changing and collapsing as the local fish industry struggles against a changing climate. As his family, friends, and new love interest reconcile with moving away, Kári wants to stay.
Like Kári, Stórá grew up living and working on the Faroe Islands, a self-governing chain of islands way up north in the Kingdom of Denmark. Without much of an existing artistic canon, Stórá has now utilized his years of experience making films to bring his spotlight back onto his home of origin. Comprised of a largely Faroese crew, The Last Paradise on Earth tells the story of the Faroe people by the Faroe people.
In our lovely conversation, Stórá and I talked about his journey into filmmaking from an isolated small town, his experience showing the movie to an international audience, and some behind-the-scenes details of making the movie itself. We also discussed the importance of building a nation’s cinema, and communicating stories about such niche communities.
If you can, I highly recommend you catch The Last Paradise on Earth, especially if you want to cry about how the world is not the same now as it was when you were a child. The film is currently running the festival circuit, and is nominated for the 2025 Nordic Council Film Prize.
Is it easy to answer questions about the movie?
No. It’s not. And I think a lot of the questions, they don’t have a binary answer. There are often many reasons for the choices that you took in that film. Also, I always get asked about what season it’s shot in, like oh that place must look great in the summer, when actually it’s like the peak of the summer [there].
Are your producers also from the Faroe Islands?
Yeah. Most of the crew was local because film in Faroe Islands is very new. I really wanted this film to help build that experience, so I wanted to work with a lot of local crew. But I think all in all we were from 6 countries, France, Denmark, Belgium, the Faroe Islands of course, even Mexico and Guatemala. So it was a very fun mixture of people.
And how did you get into film, from the context of being from where you are from?
The film is based on a guy that works at a fish factory and I did that myself for 3 years. Then I had to do something with my life, it felt, so I moved to Norway and went to a school that had this film program. I did that for one year, and after that I got really hooked and then I decided to study film in Norway. Not really planning, but I wanted to try it out, because it always interested me. Ever since [I was] a kid and I saw like, Star Wars. Just to see something that I knew wasn’t real but at the same time it was real, on the screen.
I know, being from a small town where the arts aren’t very big, it takes awhile to understand that you can make a life and a career out of it, so how did you discover that?
I was pretty young, and I saw some Danish TV, behind-the-scenes to some series. And then also I had a VHS edition of Star Wars that had some behind the scenes stuff. And then I discovered, oh, people are actually doing those things, but that was much later that I realized. Actually, I just wanted to do something related to that, so sound was what I was wanting to do before I got into directing. I think that was more by accident, that I stumbled into directing. I still think sound is really nice to work with. That’s the only part of the process where I get involved with touching things, especially in the post-production. It’s very nice to be feeling more like a part of the sound crew by actually doing things instead of just like, talking.
Directing can be sort of a broad title, I imagine you were involved in so many ways.
Yeah, of course. For this film I co-wrote it with two Danish guys (Mads Stegger and Tommy Oksen). And yes, directing is a very, very broad thing, but I think for me the thing that I spent the most time with was the actors. Creating and making those characters come alive is my favorite thing about it. And it’s also because we (the Farose people) don’t have any tradition at the moment with filmmaking or acting in films, so I have to spend a lot of time with the actors. So it’s also a bit out of necessity that I spent so much time with the actors, but I really liked it, and I think that it is a very giving thing. The acting for this had something special. That was also a really long process with rehearsals and the casting because when you have only like 55,000 people, you don’t get that many people showing up at the casting. I think for the sister character who is one of the leads in the film we had like 18 or 19 girls showing up and none of them had any experience. The one I casted had never been in front of a camera before.
Just theater?
No.
No acting at all! Wow.
You have to kind of know what you can achieve together.
And how do you know that?
I think it’s just based on intuition, because you don’t have so much else. But it’s also how you are able to communicate. And also the chemistry with the other actors, because I think the chemistry is a very important thing. If you have the chemistry right then you have the foundation for everything else. So I spent a lot of time figuring that out together with the cast. Before the script was done we were already rehearsing so I could take some of the experience that we had from rehearsing and write that back into the script. It was a very nice process.
So there’s really been no prior movies from the Faroe Islands?
I mean no, this is not the first. In the last 10 years there’s been a lot of short films and stuff like that. Things are really starting to grow. I did my first feature in 2017. And there have been a few Faroese films before that but a long time ago. But I think everyone who is working with films in the Faroe Islands is also very determined to develop Faroese film, Faroese cinema.
For what purpose?
Because we need to have films. For example, I wouldn’t be able to imagine Denmark without films. That would be completely strange if Denmark didn’t have any films. I think every culture needs to be able to see itself in the cinema. That’s how we can reflect on things, and that’s how we can grow, in a way. That’s one of the important things about cinema.
I’m so curious, what’s the reception been like from the Faroe Islands from people that have seen it?
It’s been very positive. I think a lot of people are getting very touched by it. It tells a story that they can relate to, but they have not been able to see before. But also, in Denmark it did very well. I was so nervous about how the reception would be in Denmark. In the Faroe Islands, you don’t get that many films so people try to be very happy about it anyways. But in Denmark, they have films, and they also have reviewers. But the reviews were very good in Denmark.
I’ve lived in small towns. I think especially small towns that rely on seasonal work, that depend on a very specific industry, like the Faroe Islands, would receive this movie very well because it’s such a relatable story. And it’s very sad. But it's also the same story here is happening there, and there’s so much pride and love within these small communities, so I think in that sense the film would be able to connect with a universal audience.
Yeah, and I knew that I wanted to make a story that was universal as well, relatable in a lot of places. And I also think that story is overlooked, the small working town places that are shutting down. Often they only seem like a statistic, but I wanted to really get into what the people are experiencing. Also because – I live in Copenhagen now, but besides that – I lived in my hometown which is very much like that. I remember the factory has been shut down a few times. You can feel the depression hitting the place. I think also when it’s set on an island it becomes much more isolated, you can’t really “take the bus” to the next town, you’re just stuck there in a way.
In the Faroe Islands, are they talking about climate change a lot?
I don’t know how much people over there are talking about it as a direct impact on their lives. No, I don’t think they are. That was one of the things I wanted to do– I didn’t want to deal too much with that subject in a way, but I wanted to show it how it is present[ly]. I think often when you talk about the concept of climate change, we’re thinking about these horrible visions of the future. But I wanted it to be how it’s properly present in the lives of people already, maybe without them being aware of it. My girlfriend is doing her PHD in climate studies, so I am very aware of it, but I think it’s actually affecting us in ways we are not so aware about. Especially when you have these places that only exist because of the resources in nature, it’s going to affect those places a lot.
All humans dependent on natural resources at the end of the day. In cities, it's easier to feel removed from that because you’re not seeing things grow, you’re not seeing the fish going into the machine in the factory or the fish come out of the ocean, but like, it’s gonna come for them first, and then it’s gonna come for all of us.
Yeah absolutely. And it is a very interesting thing as well, I felt it was a bit hard to go into that subject in the film because it kind of is a question that demands answers in a way, and I think in our daily lives we don’t see those answers. It’s a really tiny story, and I wanted to do that to have space for some broader themes. I think that works well– If I had made this story much bigger then it wouldn’t leave as much space for subtext.
I think it’s so true. It feels contradictory, but in storytelling the more specific you get, the more universal you get.
I also wanted to be very honest about how factory work is. It’s kind of boring, and when you’re doing it, you’re never thinking that you’ll miss it. So I wanted the film to reflect that because it would have been easy to romanticize it, or make a caricature out of it.
Yeah, that is something that really grabbed me the most– how even he doesn’t know why he so badly doesn’t want to leave, but he shouldn’t have to explain himself. It’s just a foundational feeling of love and condition to your life, even if the life doesn’t necessarily measure up to the “dream life” from an outside perspective.
Exactly. I always had a hard time explaining why I chose to remain in my hometown. It’s just a feeling. It’s very hard to argue for why you should.
Was it cathartic to tell the story then?
Yeah, in a way, absolutely. It was also like, I was really nervous about showing this film. The story itself is not so personal, but a lot of the themes and emotions in the film are quite personal, so suddenly I realized that I was very nervous about showing the film. But, then we did it and I was fine. It’s kind of anticlimactic how there was nothing to be nervous about.
