15 minute read
Estonian Film 2024 / 2
SHARING SUCCESS
After celebrating the success of Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, partners in life and art, Anna Hints and Tushar Prakash, are returning to the smoke sauna with the short Sauna Day, set to premiere at Cannes.
By Andrei Liimets photos by Riina Varol
Congratulations! Premiering at Cannes is a director’s dream. What were your initial reactions to the news?
Tushar Prakash: It hasn’t really set in yet. I first went to Cannes nine years ago for a screenwriting workshop and am now heading back with a movie, which feels very special. It is a crazy, massive festival of cinema. We have a word in India called “bazaar” – it’s the bazaar of cinema.
We tried to experiment in this movie, trying something new for us. It was interesting to see how it worked on the programmers – they wrote back to us and we had a real wow-moment, because we understood that our experiments worked!
Anna Hints: I’ve been so happy. Before we went to Sundance with Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, it seemed to be an unreachable world for me. I thought it was just through politics that one can get to the A-list festivals, but actually what matters is just a strong film that somehow stands out, you don’t need to know the people before to get selected. We just submitted our film to Sundance, and they loved it. It’s the same this time around. We were able to make something that resonates and gets noticed. I loved the Critics Week approach to us – the fact they called the producer Johanna Maria Paulson and gave their feedback in person. I’ve also understood that you build a relationship with a festival. There are human beings and you create a connection with them after you have been lucky to be selected. It doesn’t mean your work will be accepted next time, but you can communicate, talk about the film directly with them.
Sauna Day is a very Estonian and very male story. What resonated for the programmers at Cannes?
AH: They found it to be beautifully poetic and intimate, yet also tense. We were filming it last summer as a short film, but when I watched the material, I saw potential for a long film and wasn’t sure there was a short film there. Then it started tickling me from the inside. I tasked myself with creating a short that is not a wannabe long film like many short films tend to be, but really cut down the material we had filmed and find the poem inside the much longer material. Then it clicked, and now I am very proud of the result.
I am also intrigued to use the other material we have and film more to create a long film too. I just wrote to all the main actors that most of the material we filmed last summer is not in the film as I see it in a longer film, and that the short film we have now is really much shorter than planned. Everyone supported my decision and are ready to experiment further for a long one too.
TP: What I find interesting is that the real emotion and the theme is never in the dialogues, never evident outside, never shown through the tools you usually use to narrate a story. Everything is in the “unsaid.” The audience must feel it. That’s why it was also difficult to write the script. It’s quite unconventional, and it’s also kind of anthropological filmmaking. Many people, all the non-actors and even one of the professional actors are from the valley where the film takes place. We even filmed in the house of one of our leading actors.
How different is it premiering a short film when compared to a full-length feature? Especially now you have the experience of Smoke Sauna Sisterhood under your belts.
AH: This is an interesting aspect of the film industry. When Smoke Sauna Sisterhood won the European film award and there was a press conference, the most burning question was: Anna, when is your next film? When is your next real film? And they meant a full length fiction film. Of course, there is more visibility and more opportunities for full-length features, which is weird in a way, because we all live in a constant deficit of time. The short format can be amazing!
Despite this, the whole industry is still focused on long format and especially fiction, even though documentaries are doing so well. I have a theory this has happened because in documentaries there is more creative freedom, there is less money, more risks are taken. The big question for me is how to take all the freedom I love in documentaries and take it into fiction films as well. I’m doing my master’s degree in the Estonian Theatre Academy and seeing how theatre is born – there is always a relationship to the reality you are creating, and you are not stuck with the concept you’ve had before, in the script or otherwise.
Art has to be alive and many things in the industry are killing that life. The biggest task is to keep everything alive on the set as well, not stuck in an Excel sheet. For example, I’m so happy with our producers Johanna Maria Paulson and Evelin Penttilä, because it’s not usual that we are shooting a short film, then the director says that this seems to actually be a long one, so let’s make the short really short, cut a lot of things out, and also let’s basically make a long one from the short as well.
I think making Smoke Sauna Sisterhood gave the impulse, which we started to follow. I didn’t want to buckle under outside pressure on what to do next. Every time we start making something, we are standing in the middle of a creative forest, but we have only gotten there with the help from many other artists. And there you can either choose to follow a path someone has paved, or take a dive into the unknown. I feel the need to head for the unknown, to tread my own path.
Estonians are used to going to the sauna often. Tushar, as an outsider in a sense, why do you think the sauna setting attracts international attention?
TP: I remember going to the smoke sauna for the first time, and it was actually the same smoke sauna where Sauna Day was shot. It was the summer of 2016, right after St. John’s Day, and it was a very mystical space. The dark ambience, the warmth, the sound and the acoustics, the vibes of the space. It touched a new side of my personality, and I felt a connection to this country, this culture, this region.
There are no saunas in India. In India, we don’t like stagnant-wet places, because the climate is such that the water has to be flowing and fresh. In the setting of Estonia, the sauna works and functions in a different way, creating intimacy, conversations, and a pure space of cleaning, giving birth, and also performing death rituals.
But the space of cleaning is common in every culture, in every tribe, in every religion. Even with Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, as one of the editors of the movie, I thought that we should first establish the smoke sauna as a place for cleaning and washing, because I understood that it resonates with every culture, even mine. It’s the same with Sauna Day – people finish their work and then go to wash everything off. That’s the bridge between cultures.
AH: I’ve seen different sauna communities around the world, which is like a freedom movement. There are many who have told me about connections to Native Americans or Maoris in New Zealand, but what really resonates is this intimacy. You can have a sauna without the nakedness of souls, but we do have it here, which is a real treasure. It doesn’t mean every Estonian has the same mindset and starts fully opening up in a sauna, but thanks to the sauna culture we have this possibility for intimacy. It’s the opposite of social media, where we present ourselves with our best clothes.
In a smoke sauna, you take everything off, and it doesn’t stop with clothing, but metaphorical, metaphysical clothes. You create a connection with yourself as well, and I think we are really yearning for that as a society. There is polarisation everywhere, people are in their bubbles. The sauna space allows you to really see and hear each other. It doesn’t mean you have to agree on everything, but you give space to connect, build intimacy, hear each other out.
Between Smoke Sauna Sisterhood and Sauna Day you released Estonian Man, the short documentary about Tushar’s acclimatisation in Estonia. What do you find particular about the Estonian view of what a man should be like?
TP: Where I come from, you choose your path and then dedicate yourself to excelling in that path. The social structure is made in a way, where if you’re an architect, a journalist, a filmmaker, that is your Dharma, your duty, your destiny. You have to do that properly, with full awareness and responsibility. Let the carpenter make the chairs, let the tailor make the clothes, that is their Dharma. There are even gods for all these professions.
In Estonia, you’re supposed to do everything yourself. The real man is a renaissance man who builds the house, repairs things, raises chicken, while also directing films. I find this difficult to adapt to, because there is this celebration of being self-reliant, doing it yourself, being good in everything or at least being able to do everything. There’s this pride in being a man that builds a house for years and years and years.
What I wanted to understand is where this comes from. It’s also a lineage of fathers and grandfathers and going back to Tammsaare’s characters (Anton Hansen Tammsaare, the author of Truth and Justice, also made into a hugely successful film – AL) or even Kalevipoeg (the Estonian folk hero – AL). There’s a mythologising of men who did everything, but it’s also a great weight, and men become victims of this mythologisation. The stories are exactly that – stories. The grandfathers were also human beings, but we imagine them as these rounded strong men, who could lift hundreds of kilos. These stories are filled with work, work, work, but there is no intimacy, no emotional connection. The men are seen as heroes, there is no space for any weakness. I want to clarify, I don’t fully agree with the Indian system either, the abuse of that can lead to the caste system mentality.
Estonian men are known for being emotionally closed off, which is equated with strength. What should men learn about intimacy?
AH: I think it’s not about gender, but we all need to learn that real strength lies in the courage to be vulnerable. We can fear connection with others, but we do want it. If we are scared to open ourselves, it may lead to violence. I’ve been encouraging people to be okay with the uncomfortableness of emotional vulnerability. The only ability to connect is through that.
It’s not only individual, it’s about society in general as well. Do we create safe spaces where we can open up? If we are traumatised, everything freezes within us. It’s important to remember that this ice in us can melt as well, but for this to happen, we need a warm and safe space. If a society is highly polarised and every opening up gets labelled as weak, then it’s very difficult to show the real you. That is why we need, at least on a community level, spaces where we wouldn’t be afraid of vulnerability and differences.
If we don’t talk about things, we create monsters. The question is how to learn to really listen and see, and not be afraid of each other. That’s not weakness, but huge inner strength and freedom.
TP: Shame is something men suffer from – they just don’t feel adequate enough. Men should learn to feel comfortable with themselves, that’s also something I must come to terms with within myself. That’s something I want to tell in my films as well – “you are not alone; I’m going through the same process as you.”
We’re not beautiful clay sculptures made by Michelangelo, we are not perfect, we should understand and embrace imperfection. Instead men often escape to work or fame or money, but there will never be enough, you still feel empty, because it’s about a fundamental feeling of emptiness. Men also get really good at escaping from authentic relationships.
AH: The trouble is in the mindset, which goes beyond gender. Women have internalised a lot of this judgmental gaze towards themselves and others as well. What interests me is where did we get the idea that suppressing what we feel is strength? When did this happen in our history? I think it’s a reaction to trauma, and the trauma keeps getting passed on.
You work together and you’re a couple as well, you travel a lot, you have different cultural backgrounds. All of this puts quite a strain on a relationship. How do you make it all work?
AH: This is such an important question. We are still in that process and it’s super-challenging. It’s about finding a healthy balance between work and personal life. I have a tendency to become super-focused and workaholic. Then I have to consciously come back and create spaces, where there is no work. We can talk about films, culture, politics, but not about work tasks
When I travel, I can only do that because I have people at home who support me – Tushar, my daughter Leele, and other close people, family and friends. They see what is behind the glamour and the shine of the awards, the real cost of success. The sad thing is they get the worst of me, which is unfair. That puts a responsibility on me to not leave my closest ones with a deficit of attention.
We can’t talk about relationships with others without talking about the relationships with ourselves. I have to find ways to be able to give the best of myself, because that’s what our close ones deserve.
TP: Creating together is beautiful, it gives you courage, partnership. It can be such a lonely journey otherwise. It can also be challenging and can take over your whole life, so you have to create boundaries between work and personal life. It’s important to recognise that one person’s success is everyone’s success, resulting from contributions by many. Success is not a zero-sum game. Embracing and being inspired by this is crucial, not just for individuals or teams, but for entire families and countries.
Johanna Maria Paulson, producer
Please describe how Sauna Day has been developing.
The initial screenplay of Sauna Day had far more material than the film we have today.
We wanted to create a wholesome film that really is short, length-wise, but the shooting period was so fruitful that Anna and Tushar picked up on the idea for a full-length fiction film. We experimented with different edits and found a completely new narrative that still works as we had intended at first. The rest of the material is waiting for its time.
From the producer’s perspective, what do you think drew the programmers at Cannes to it?
Critics Week is looking for fresh, high quality films from around the world, but the short film itself is an unforgiving format that has to demonstrate the author’s vision inside very restrictive frames. For Sauna Day it was Anna and Tushar’s strong and thoroughly composed vision that led us through the unconventional post production process. I feel that you are able to experiment far more freely if you know in your heart what you are after, as you do not have to cling onto the material in the fear of losing something important. But even after giving your everything, you still cannot predict what the festival thinks.
Short films are difficult to distribute to wider audiences. What are your plans with Sauna Day?
After receiving the wonderful news, most of our attention has gone towards finishing the post production and preparing for the premiere. We are hoping to partner up with a strong sales agent very soon to guarantee a wide international distribution for the film. We cannot share any news yet, but there are already other great festivals who have shown interest in the film; and we ourselves look forward to screening the film for Estonian audiences as well, especially in Southern Estonia.
