NEWS From the left: producer Tatjana Mühlbayer, actress Zhanel Sergazina, post-production manager Natalja Larina, producer Artur Veeber and actor Abylai Maratov.
Kim Ki-duk’s Last Film at PÖFF This year’s Venice film festival premiered a unique co-production between Estonia, Lithuania and Kyrgyzstan. Call of God was shown Out of Competition at La Biennale. It was the last project of the late South-Korean film director Kim Ki-duk, who spent the last months of his life in Estonia and died in Latvia in 2020 due to complications with COVID. By Maria Ulfsak Photos by Giorgio Zucchiatti (Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia) and Artur Veeber
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all of God was shot in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in summer 2019. Before his sudden passing, the director had prepared the rough cut of the project and his colleagues had to finish the film. One of the producers of the film Artur Veeber says that the whole cast and crew were all shocked by the tragedy of Kim’s death. “People that worked with Kim kept asking about the film. So, after many
long and difficult discussions, we have decided to finish it. We totally understand the responsibility, since Kim Ki-duk films were always so-called auteur cinema. He always believed that the plot is the main element of a film. So we tried our best to follow each and every letter of his script. The biggest problem was the sound – the rough sound that had been recorded on the set; it had to be rerecorded completely. For creating the score, we invited the Estonian composer Sven Grünberg, with whom Kim was supposed to work on the next film,” explains the producer, who joined the project in the post-production phase. The final editing of the film was done by Lithuanian film director Audrius Juzenas, and editor Karolis Labutis. The sound designer is Sangam Panta from Nepal. Artur Veeber says that they did their best to bring to life the author’s vision using the material he had accomplished before he died. “In Venice we presented a film like a “Tribute to Kim Ki-duk” from his friends and colleagues. If Kim would be alive, of course, the film would be a little bit different, I think. But all of the original footage of the film was directed and filmed by Kim Ki-duk. The story and dialogue are the same as in the script.” Veeber and Kim had met in Berlin in 2004 when the director won the Silver Bear for Samaritan Girl. Later they accidentally met in Kazakhstan and Veeber invited him to Tallinn. According to the producer, Kim Ki-duk was planning to shoot his next film Cloud, Rain, Snow and Fog in Estonia. He did the location hunting and interviewed the cast in 2020. “But Estonian nature interfered: it started to get dark too early as the fall was about to change to winter. Therefore, it was decided to move the shooting period to spring of the next year. Meanwhile Kim wanted to travel for winter to one of the southern countries. But unfortunately he was infected and eventually died due to complications with COVID,” says the producer. Call of God will be screened at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and released in Estonia theatrically. The production of the film was supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Avakademija from Lithuania and the Public Fund of culture “Altyn Anar” from Kyrgyzstan. EF ESTONIAN FILM
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