In the aftermath of the killings, there was widespread bafflement. No-one seemed to know just why Pekka resorted to such extreme violence. In his new film Pekka (premiering at IDFA in Dutch Competition), Alexander Oey tries to make sense of the killer’s actions.

As the director points out, there are plenty of stories (and films) about high school killings in the US. He wanted to find a European example. But when Oey approached family and classmates of the killer, they were extremely reluctant to take part in the documentary. “A lot less people were willing to talk about it than I thought,” he says.

The hostility of the locals was understandable. In the immediate aftermath of the killings, journalists had posed as social workers and had used trickery and aggression to try to get a story. Pekka’s parents refused to help (although the film does include archive material of an interview they gave to Finnish television in 2008). They were suspicious about Oey’s motives and scared that he was looking to sensationalise the case. That wasn’t his intention at all. His film was designed more as a psychological case study of a boy who was clearly very troubled.

Eventually, the director tracked down a girl from the high school who was willing to speak on camera about Pekka. It turned out that he had been bullied. Even so, classmates didn’t think they were treating him that badly and the teachers didn’t see a problem.

One way for Oey to try to analyse Pekka’s state of mind was to study his writings and the material he had posted on YouTube. These revealed a troubled and depressed soul. There is a tragic undertow to the story that Oey tells. To call Pekka misunderstood is to understate it. The problem, the director suggests, is that those around him only ever saw part of his personality.

“What surprised me most was that everybody who was involved with him only saw a part of him. In the end, no-one saw all of him and so no-one could have known that he was out of order and had problems,” Oey reflects. “His friends saw only a part, his parents saw only a part, the teachers (the same) but no-one saw the whole of him. If they had, maybe they would have thought this man needs some help.” In the film, Oey’s goal is to try to understand Pekka’s personality in full.

Look at the director’s filmography and you’ll discover a man who has tackled all sorts of different subjects. Off The Grid (2011) looked at how Americans were coping with the new Depression. The Terrorist Hans-Joachim Klein (2005) was a portrait of a former associate of Carlos The Jackal who now lives quietly in the Normandy countryside. Does he see thematic links between his films?

“Yes, there are connections,” Oey suggests. “Maybe it all boils down to people or individuals who have to face the system that they live in - how you survive or deal with the system…you have to abide by laws and live in the system.”

The director hopes that Pekka will be seen in Dutch schools. “Especially kids of this age, they are not that conscious about people who are different and (how to) be tolerant toward them. They don’t have this empathy, to be sympathetic to somebody who is really strange or weird. I hope this film can change their mind a little bit. If someone is weird, just leave them alone and don’t bully them and they might be ok.”

^{Alexander Oey}

Pekka Director: Alexander Oey Production: Submarine Script: Alexander Oey