A shutterbug, Kadri must’ve taken three hundred pictures. A perfectionist, she probably deleted half and replaced them with more. A self-described “forest fetishist,” she got lost among the
cedars and Douglas firs. She marveled at the dark green moss that enveloped the arms of the powerful trees.

“The forests of Estonia are not as beautiful,” she said.

I could tell she was mesmerized. She wondered if this was anything like the Amazon jungles and was enthralled by the idea of mountain lions. After an hour and a half in the forest, we
had only wandered a hundred feet. Though this may simply be one of Kadri’s traits; soaking up her surroundings, we spent an equal amount of time in a bookstore on Commercial Drive and
she had only browsed through one section. After arriving home, we looked at the pictures.

“The trees,” she suggested. “They are so photogenic!”

I saw the few pictures that I was in—for scale, we said, standing awkwardly off to one side. I realized that perhaps the forest is so photogenic because it is not aware of the camera and
that it is this self-awareness that is restrictive in achieving the grandeur of one’s desires.

The second film holds the working title Nelly & John. A lame title, she acknowledges, but it’s well into the development stages. She told me that she wanted to set the film in Canada.
As I pondered that perhaps this would be the best way to relegate an edgy arthouse film into obscurity, it dawned on me: Canada sends plenty of her own filmmakers overseas to make films
set in those countries. Toronto’s Deepa Mehta directed Water in India, Atom Egoyan directed Felicia’s Journey in Ireland and England. I couldn’t think of a single example of a foreign
director choosing to set a film in Canada—shooting yes, but not setting.

“Don’t Canadian filmmakers make use of the beautiful rainforest?” she asked. I thought about it for a moment.

“I get the sense that most Canadian films take place indoors,” I answered. “It’s just easier.”

Kadri’s life experiences suggest that she certainly doesn’t go about things the easy way, but she reaches out for what she wants. The adage goes that fortune favours the bold. She told
me her stories about sojourns in New York City and Kazakhstan; as a teen meeting just the right people in Venice at just the right time to land a jury pass to the Venice Film Festival; and
of course thanks to Magnus, she has been invited to actually sit on the jury of the upcoming Warsaw Film Festival in Poland. She makes me question my own approaches to life: do I take

enough risks? The lesson here, I believe, is to surround yourself with your passion, carry yourself with confidence and the rest will sort itself out.

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MAGNUS

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