The Alien Has Landed

Moonika Siimets, whose previous film

The Little Comrade was a success story both domestically and abroad, is now in post-production with her new project.

By Maria Ulfsak Photos by Priit Grepp

Black Hole is a full-length feature film and its genre can be described as an absurdist comedy. It is a funny, but at the same time critical view on the modern world, where people are affected by the media and are suffering because of their prejudices and fears. The script, written by Siimets herself, is inspired by two novellas from Armin Kõo- mägi, “Black Hole” and “Spider”, and Andrus Kivirähk’s novella “A Life Worth Living”. The film is produced by Riina Sildos (Amrion, EE), and co-produced by Jussi Rantamäki (Aamu Film Company, FI).

The budget of Black Hole is 1.8 million euros and it is set to premiere in 2024.

The events of the film start in a suburban tower block district. Uma is a young lonely gay woman, Maret and Sirje are two middle-aged ladies who are best friends and who dream of finding a job in Finland. And Jüri is a romantic esoteric - a bachelor living with his mother. They are all longing for happiness and love, each in their own way. When aliens, a giant spider, and an Austrian wearing breeches turn up, their dreams fade like stars lost in a black hole…

According to the director Moonika Siimets, the film is about humanity’s moral decline and people’s inability to connect. The characters try to find love, intimacy, and happiness in a world where sincere feelings, gratitude, and human values no longer have a place. “Through the film, I am looking for an answer to a question: is what we want what we really need,” comments Siimets.

To producer Riina Sildos, this is already the fourth film with the director. Sildos says that Siimets has always very clear visions as a director about the film she is creating - and that she can make the whole crew believe in it. “Her ideas are always humanistic, sharp and in a way critical about the society. But she can always tell her stories through humour and self-irony, in a viewer-friendly way.” According to the producer, the shooting period that took place in autumn 2022 was a tough challenge. “For the first time for us, we used an extremely complicated animatronic for our alien. It was built by our team here in Estonia and one top team in Spain. How the alien was going to work was the million dollar question, because nobody in the local film industry had any experience with an animatronic like this.

Luckily, we found out that the result was very good! Even so good that all of the crew members fell in love with its deep blue eyes and were petting and hugging it constantly,” says Riina Sildos.

The cinematographer of Black Hole is Ivar Taim, and the editor of the film is Joona Louhivuori. The production designer is Kari Kankaanpää from Finland, the costumes are designed by Liis Plato. The actors in the main roles are Ursel Tilk, Liina Tennosaar, Kristo Viiding, Jekaterina Linnamäe, Rea Lest, Doris Tislar, Eva Koldits, Anne Reemann, Hannu-Pekka Björkman. BF

Questions

What are you currently working on? Your expectations for this year’s Berlinale?

Romas Zabarauskas

PRODUCER/DIRECTOR, NARATYVAS

1As a producer, director and writer, I’m creating a trilogy of queer male love stories in different cinematic genres and political contexts. The Lawyer (2020), funded by the Lithuanian Film Center, tells the romantic story of a Lithuanian lawyer Marius (Eimutis Kvošciauskas) and a Syrian refugee Ali (Dogaç Yıldız). The film connected well with a global audience: sold to eight international distributors, dubbed in French and Portuguese, screened at 33 film festivals including seven opening, centrepiece and closing ceremonies.

The Activist, co-written with Marc Davic Jacobs and Vitalija Lapina, features a printing press worker Andrius (Robertas Petraitis) who infiltrates a neo-Nazi group to find the killer of his boyfriend, activist Deividas (Elvinas Juodkazis). With this noir coded thriller, I’m excited to centre queer characters, allowing them to be strong heroes, villains, femmes fatales. We received development funding from the Lithuanian Film Center, and the film should be ready in early 2024.

The Writer, co-written with Marc David Jacobs, Anastasia Sosonuva and Arturas Tereškinas, is an intimate story of two sixty-year-old queer men reconnecting after 30 years. Kostas (Bruce Ross) and Dima (Jamie Day) met while serving in the Soviet army in the 1980s, and Dima joined Kostas in moving from Russia to Lithuania. But after Lithuania gained independence in the 1990s, Kostas left to study in New York, leaving Dima behind. Kostas has now published his third fiction book, based on their separation. Upon reading it, Dima pays a visit to correct a few facts. It’s an English-language, privately funded project co-produced with Artysta Management GmbH (Glenn Elliott, Germany) and Dead Heat Pictures LLC (Aidan Tumas, United States). We will premiere it in early 2024 or 2025.

2Pursuing my career as a queer filmmaker, I broke glass ceilings every step of the way, and I’m proud that my films enjoy worldwide appeal. Now I want to connect with more international collaborators: programmers, distributors, agents!.

film@vilnius lt FilmVilnius.com