Nisimazine Kaunas 2012

26 September - 7 October 2012

Nisimazine kaunas

content Page 3 Page 4-5

Wide Angle Pages 8-9 Pages 10 -11 Pages 12-13 Pages 14-17 Pages 18-19

Identity

Pages 22-23 Pages 24-25 Pages 26-27 Pages 28-33

Editorial Interview with KIFF Organziers: Ilona Jurkonyte & Tomas Tengmark Review and interview Gulf Stream under the iceberg Review and interview Narcissus Review and interview Neighbouring Sounds Reviews Wide Angle Section In Focus: The representation of women Review and interview In the bedroom Review and interview Tutti Giu Review and interview People out there Reviews Identity Section

Special Interviews Page 36 Page 37

Interview Marius Holst Interview Laila Pakalnina

Music at Kaunas Pages 40-41

All the Muses Pages 42-43

Short Films

In Focus: The Singing Revolution Reviews All the Muses section

Pages 46-47

Reviews Short Films

Pages 48-49 Pages 50-51

In Focus: The truthfulness animation Critic’s Votes + Credits

editorial Some may call it an obsession, others simply a healthy way of looking at modern cinema. Either way Nisimazine has always distanced itself from the usual film publications by targeting, at all costs, the future of filmmaking: Young directors and the new, sometimes hidden, currents in world cinema. Following this premise, as if it was some kind of religious ritual, we set off to Lithuania in search of what new visions the young Baltic nations have to offer and we were not disappointed at all.

The Kaunas International Film Festival may be one of the youngest events around but it impressed us, above all, for its maturity and varied program, that mixed some of the most sought out productions of the year, as well as an avalanche of pieces done by, what we now recognize, some of the most inspiring and promising filmmakers of the new generation.

Disregarding the sometimes annoying clichés we so often encounter in festivals around the world, Kaunas has no intention to pretend to be what it will never be. Glamour and big starts will never fit the bill: this is a festival very much, and unashamedly, focused on art-house cinema, so no red carpets, no late night parties and definitely no sign of commercial features.

In its 11 sections it focused on the new with as much ferocity as the old. Of course it is unavoidable to mention the presence of award winning films such as Miguel Gomes Tabu, or Ken Loach´s latest work Angel´s Share, or even the staggering Hunt, the new feature of Danish Enfant Terrible Thomas Vintenberg. But these master pieces are definitely not what made this program unique.

Kaunas stands out as the perfect window to the best the region has got to offer. For instance, we were blown away by Latvia´s incessant and vigorous thirst for new paths, particularly with People Out There, by Aik Karapetian, a film that announces the coming of a vicious and unrelentless filmmaking movement. We got the chance to marvel at Tomasz Wasilewski In The Bedroom, an intimate portray of modern life relations in the new Poland. Above all, and perhaps most importantly, we were dazzled by Lithuania´s answer to the flood of Punk documentaries of the last few years, with a phenomenally emotional film called How We played the Revolution, a personal favourite of the entire festival.

If you add to all this a pretty extensive retrospective look at the work of the legendary Jonas Mekas, the intimidating Ursula Meier and the insane world of Roy Andersson, it is easy to recognize all the potential this dedicated group of programmers has for the future.

In fact, if there is one lesson that can be taken out of our presence in Kaunas is that the region is not only filled with fresh ideas and perspectives when it comes to producing cinema, but it also is packed with the right attitude to take it to the big screen and make it a phenomenon. Potential is a word not used lightly in this context, making this festival one of the most exciting of the year.

Having written all this, why don’t you just see it for yourself and find your own opinion? For 11 days a group of young journalists from The Netherlands, Finland and Lithuania covered the festival extensively. This is the result. Believe me, just like us, you won’t be disappointed.

Fernando Vasquez (Portugal) nisimazine kaunas // 3

Ilona Jurkonyte & Tomas Tengmark Kaunas International Film Festival organizers In-between film sessions the festival organizers Ilona Jurkonyte and Tomas Tengmark caught up with us. They talked about the first steps of the festival, what they tried to achieve, what difficulties they had to overcome and how they feel after 6 years of great work.

Tell me your personal story of how you fell in love with movies?

Tomas: I started loving films because of cinema history. But I also had a big film interest since childhood, my father used to take me to the cinema, that´s how it started and this of course led me to film studies.

Ilona: My story is a bit different, because my love for film started with lack of film culture. During my second year at university the situation in national cinema was quite difficult, especially with Lithuanian film distribution. One time, me and my friends from university decided to see Raimundas Banionis film Children from American hotel, but there was no possibility to do that.

One of our professors suggested to get in contact with Banionis and ask himself for the copy of the film. I called him and also got another film as well, brought it back to Kaunas were we saw it with friends. After I gave the films back to Banionis I started reflecting that it was a lot of work for the director to distribute his own movies. That’s how I discovered the problem, that there are some treasures about which we don’t have enough information and we don’t have an access to the viewing copies as well. As a result we started an information website LFC.LT , Lithuanian film center.

nisimazine kaunas // 4

We are not running it now, but when we did we tried to put as much information about Lithuanian film as possible.

How did the festival started, what is the story behind it, how did you come up with the whole idea?

I: When other people took over the LFC project, we already had a big urge to talk about films and start showing them. It was pretty natural at that time to make this decision and start screenings of those films. It started as a weekend film club in Kaunas, which became so popular. So at that point we identified a lot of problems, like lack of information, lack of spaces and film screenings. And in 2007 Romuva cinema was as well shut down, which didn’t get a lot of attention. So we decided to organize the festival in this place which was supposed to be turn into a casino. Therefore we started an underground fight organization for saving Romuva theater.

After a lot of preparations in 2007 we started the first Kaunas film festival. We made the first public discussion with the municipality involved, raising the question about Romuva. So we collected a lot of signatures to save Romuva during the preparations of the first festival.

Tomas how and when did you get involved with the whole organization of the festival? And what is your current position at the festival?

T: In 2006 I got an email form Ilona asking me to help her with Swiss films because she wanted to show them in the Nordic film program in Kaunas. I was looking at that list and started crossing out some films which

What is the concept of this year´s festival and what was the criteria for choosing films?

I: The festival has four core sections, which have been stable for those 6 years: Identity, it focuses on personal community and search of identity. The Wide Angle section deals with the making of the films as it shows different styles of film language. Other sections, which are dedicated to arts ( All the muses, Music moves the world), they mostly deal with documentaries. And another part of festivals are special events, for example retrospectives. We are also constantly looking for some undiscovered talents. This year it is Latvian director Rolands Kalnins, which is very close to our focus (Eastern Europe). Another retrospective is Ursula Meier’s, who is a very talented and strong director from Switzerland. There is also a little tribute to Chris Marker.

I can also mention one unofficial concept of the festival. In this year´s program there are films that deal with institutions of museums and that emphasize the importance of memories and art.

Even if main core sections have an important role when we choose specific movies, still the process of choosing them for the program is very personal.

T: Therefore we care for those films a lot and show them not because of the commercial success or that some famous actor plays in it.

I: We also do visit a lot of film festivals. We include a lot of films which are not awarded, like new discoveries. We constantly exchange with other European festival organizations and we try to be as open as possible for new undiscovered talents.

What is the biggest challenge in the film festival industry?

I: It’s unavoidable to become an international festival at some point. Of course there are a lot of challenges getting there. The budget of the festival is a great challenge. We want to show art house films, which usually aren’t successful.

T: Finding the place where you feel at home is also one of the challenges. Romuva, where we are now, is the home of our festival.

But as we mentioned earlier it was very difficult to get this cinema back.

And now we want to create this network of film culture, find places where we could show non commercial movies.

And what difficulties did you have to overcome in these 6 years?

I: We started the festival before the crises and when it hit in 2008 we were still in a happy world and we were very busy. It was like we didn’t even notice the crisis during the 2008 festival. But after that the world was not the same anymore. Still I think the biggest financial difficulties were during the third festival.

T: It is always a challenge to find a place where to show those movies.

It is also a challenge to drag people back to the cinema. When the crisis hit we felt the changes in viewers attendance.

How is your relationship with Lithuanian Ministry of Culture?

I: From the very first year we got some financial support from the Ministry of Culture and every year we get some money from Kaunas city municipality as well. In 2007 we have already missed all the deadlines for Ministry and municipality funding, still after I presented the project of this festival, they helped us financially. We also are happy for EU support because all the funding allows us to bring more guests to the festival every year.

What do you think about the current situation in Lithuanian national cinema. Do you think there are a lot of difficulties?

I: I think so but this year brought some changes. Because after 10 years of active discussions the National film center was opened. We were very happy that the director of this new institution could be with us at the opening ceremony of this year´s festival.

Still there is the problem that the national film industry is very centralized in the capital but Kaunas has a big potential. We hope that this city will be noticed and joins in full force.

T: I think that as well but Kaunas concentrates too much on film production, while they supposed to think more about film education and creation of the film culture itself, as well as bringing people to cinema. I hope that our festival brings viewers back to cinema.

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didn’t applied to my taste. That year I also came to Lithuania to present Bjorn Ruges Daybreaker and Roy Andersson’s Songs from the second floor. Finally in 2007 I settled in both at Kaunas and at the festival, where I was put in charged of the program.

I: But we were all in charge of a lot of things back then. Tomas did more than just creating the program. And in those 6 years more and more people were joining the tasks.

How did the festival changed in these 6 years?

T: What changed? I got old and more gray hair. But it’s in fact very difficult to judge how it changed. I still see the same audience every year. Of course we are happy with them but we still have to do something new every year. The biggest change this year is that we are back at Romuva. We also have more people working with the program all year round. The Festival also became a bigger. Therefore every year we are learning and growing.

I: I hope it’s becoming better every year. We also started art house distribution. It’s a replay to the situation, solving the problems and filling the gap in Lithuanian film culture.

This is the 6th festival do you still have energy and plans for the future?

T: I started working a bit different in this festival. Now I am in charge for film distribution. And it’s the new change that keeps me going forward.

I: Festival it’s like an addiction. It’s like you can’t get out of it. Sometimes you suffer but after the festival you feel happy and satisfied. I love the format of the festival, which I wouldn’t change for anything else. It’s that feeling after the screenings that keeps me going.

What is unique about this festival?

I: It’s the location, program. People recognize the style of our program.

We are not a red carpet festival, and we do not seek for it.

T: We never thought we are going to do something unique. Our situation, squeezed in the corner, made us unique.

interview by Donata Juskelyte (Lithuania) nisimazine kaunas // 5

wide angle

Gulf Stream under the iceberg

Yevgeny Pashkevich new film, Latvia´s 2012 Oscar entry, talks about his first feature after a 23 years break, telling us three storie from different periods, connected by character of Lilith, the mythical first wife of Adam.

You were making this film for a very long period of time. How did the film concept and your relation to it change during this period?

The biggest task is to save oneself. When you keep an idea in your head for so long everything starts to fade away, especially thoughts and emotions. In the end we loose the film; we lose the director as well. For me there was a lot of work within myself, to maintain the idea pure. I observed how my colleges worked, how they created their features, how they told their ideas before shooting and how so little from their thoughts remained in final versions. It is really easy for any director surrounded by fans, relatives, friends and colleges to start talking about the future plans, how it is going to be great.

And that director looses a particular dynamic energy, but it is very natural for human beings. And in front of you stands an unnatural

human, I mean, I observe myself carefully from a distance and test myself constantly.

A couple of Lithuanian actors also played in the film. Could you tell more about working with them?

Both Liubomiras Laucavicius and Vaida Butyte are very warm people for me. Vaida is like sunshine, when she is on a set I feel superbly. For me she is fabulously beautiful, very energetic, self-reflective, and in the film she played a really intimate and strong role, she understands the whole depth of it. And Liubomiras is like my talisman, he played the main character in my film The Days of a Man (1989) and is a really great actor, I would say, my actor. He knows and trusts me and I trust him.

How did you find Anatoly France’s novels on which the film is based on? Were they the primary inspiration for the film?

I was very young when I got in touch with Anatoly France’s works. In Soviet times in Daugavpils, a provincial town I lived, literature classics were being sold for coins. My father brought me a couple of bags full of books, among them I found 6 or 7 France’s

Latvian director Yevgeny Pashkevich invites us to a very bizarre but visually moving adventure. His latest movie, Gulf stream under the iceberg, leads us into a magical and at the same time possessing story about Adam´s first wife, Lilith, who is mentioned in ancient oriental legends, particularly in Talmud and in the medieval books of the Cabala.

This biblical plot is not as important as the whole experience of the movie because this ‘femme fatale’ is a sort of metaphor of for the humankind:how we try to run away from Eden and strive to become sinless, yet end up just trapped in our own unconsciousness.

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pieces and I started to read them at night, being way too young for it. And that certain novel endured in my memory. I didn’t need it at that time, but in 1997, when I decided to make a new work I remembered that novel.

Then I read more of his novels and realised I could begin to create something. The point is I never wrote original scripts and I never will, I don’t know how to do it.

But I always pick up good literature, I keep its essence, yet I don’t take it with dirty hands, but translate it to film language. And then various fantasies, which don’t exist in literature, appear, yet still it has to correspond with the primary source. I am a compiler and I believe everything I read, hear, met or eat is mine; it becomes a part of me, my blood. If you believe something, you believe it, not anyone else. That is why I am a free man in my creative imagination. And because I presented my previous work more than 20 years ago, nobody needed me and I needed nothing. I simply created it, sitting and laughing in my room, staring at the same view through my window. People make stereotypes and start to believe them, but it doesn’t concern me. I communicate directly to the screen and I hope that there are more people like that who find even more reality in the film than I suggest. And the film is created not to be classified and not for pleasure of critics and I cannot come to every single screening to explain why and how we did it. I simply do it and when it is over I can make it neither better nor worse. I have to admit it is not a mainstream movie, but I care least about the critics, because the most important is how much it is unique when you reach the end.

The director divides the film by different epochs into three separate segments. The first line of the story is the Renaissance era (1664), where an art dealer from Riga becomes possessed by his housekeeper, Nida.

The second part jumps to the 19th century (1883). This time it’s the story of a young aristocrat who falls in love with Leila, the daughter of Lilith. And the last, and most confusing part of the movie, takes place in modern times (1990), where a middle aged artist is lost somewhere inbetween fantasies, artifacts and real life events.

It seems that all these historical periods try to combine one story line: all movie characters, mostly males, are controlled by Adam´s wife. But even thought the director tried to impress us with his vision, the whole narrative fells too chaotic. Perhaps he was simply attempting to show how our own unconsciousness really works, as he himself said before the screening:”Do not try to find a meaning in this movie”.

As a member of the audience you could just simply enjoy the whole cinematic experience of such a piece, because Pashkevich`s work is undoubtedly an impressive visual experience. But as a film critic you can always find a way to compare this work to Lars Von Trier’s study of women’s fatal nature and the origin of their evil spirit.

You can even go as far as find some connotations with Peter Greenaway’s depiction of naked bodies. But as Pashkevich said himself, this movie gives you the freedom of choice and an opportunity to quietly participate in it. And if you are ready to see your own unconsciousness I invite you to this chaotic, possessive and magical adventure that is The Gulf stream under the iceberg.

Yevgeny Pashkevich

review by Donata Juskelyte (Lithuania) interview by Ugne Gudzinskaite (Lithuania) Picture of Yevgeny Pashkevich by Lina Sabaitytė nisimazine kaunas // 9

Narcissus

Narcissus is one of the most promising movies of the year in Lithuanian Cinema. It depicts a story about a talented, handsome but unhappy man, constantly on the lookout for perfectionism. Narcissus is about spiritual suffering, peace quest, fighting inner self. Before the screening at Kaunas International Film Festival we had a chance to meet director Dovile Gasiunaite Could you tell us what inspired you to create this movie?

I was in a situation, where I saw a man who was very beautiful, very talented, loved by all, but he said he never felt happy. I started to think why it was so, why it happened, because for a lot of people it is enough to have just one thing - to be loved, to be beautiful or to be talented.

From that time on the story begun and evolved until today.

How did you find the connection to the Greek story? How did you decided to revisit the myth?

I was trying to be truthful and find all the

connections between the myth and the film, but they seemed to be so far away.

Though, when I finally found common things that both have i realised that in fact it underlines so much. I wanted it to feel true from all sides because of you – the people who know the myth, I wanted you to believe my story.

Why did you choose a Greek actor for the main character?

I knew him (Amvrosios Vlachopoulos) from before. And I’ve thought that his features somehow could support the myth, because they are very common to Greeks, very classical. I was using that to enrich my story. In fact, it was a very long and intense search for people who would fit the description of the character. They not only had to play, but to be consistent with each other.

Do you have your own character in the movie? Which of them best identifies your own personality?

I was thinking about it and realised that I have myself in all of the characters and some parts of their behaviour are speak-

Do you think film audience would best recognise themselves as the Narcissus or perhaps the other characters, for example, his wife?

They would be more related to other characters, which are not so much complicated, that are easier to understand. The film shows very simple, very common, everyday life situations. A lot of people recognise it a little bit from their perspective.

What were the main obstacles in the production during the year?

It was a little bit too long. During the year we were waiting for the money which supposed to be for the production and it took quite a lot time. It took six years.

Six years from the time film shooting really started.

How is your experience as a woman film maker in Lithuania? It is more complicated to create films in that situation?

In many ways you don‘t feel that, because I had the freedom to choose the crew, the cast, though there were some jokes. I heard in the streets people were saying, that some girl is making this movie, something like I heard it’s made by some girl. I don’t think its offensive, but there several of these expressions going around.

Ancient Greek myths have been a source of inspiration to many artists for almost two thousand years. Recently one of them has been revived in the first feature film of Lithuanian film maker Dovile Gasiunaite.

Narcissus was nominated for several music and acting prizes at the Silver Crane Awards, and rightly so, as the music and acting are unquestionably its high points.

Narcissus depicts a story of Theodore (Amvrosios Vlachopoulos) - a young handsome man, talented musician with a great career, who seems to have everything what man could want. But still he is not happy.

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ing my voice, my ideas. Even when they are arguing it’s almost my arguments. It was nice to see, how they develop through the film.

The whole story is based on emotions. Theodore´s feelings and actions are hardly understandable, not just for the film audience but also to the characters that coexist with him. Although the main character causes a lot of trouble to friends and relatives, they can’t resist to his narcissistic charm. Yet, even if Theodore requires attraction to himself, a world created around him makes him hate it and look elsewhere for perfectionism.

Theodore’s wife Erika (Asmik Grigorian) is the only character whose emotions could be recognised as normal in terms of nowadays society´s behaviour. To all his meaningless babbles she reacts like a loving wife, but inside can’t really conceive it, harming herself emotionally.

On the other hand, she is the most “feet-on-the-ground” and non-narcissistic person in the film, so it’s possible to say, that the main characters are chosen quite opposite in order to complement each other and to create a conflict in the story.

Narcissus is all about development of the characters. The narrative`s pace progress very slow, almost like a rhythm of music being played by Theodore, making the film unnecessarily long at points. Cinematically it may not be the most impressive piece of work at this year´s edition of Kaunas International Film Festival, yet the film is worth watching simply in order to assess the development of modern Lithuanian cinema and because it is active and full of creative and thought-provoking ideas.

Dovile Gasiunaite

review & interview by Ugnė Česnavičiūtė (Lithuania) nisimazine kaunas // 11

Neighbouring Sounds

Neighboring Sounds is a breath of fresh air in Brazilian cinema. What at first looks like another crime film turns out to be an intelligent and exciting view of the Brazil’s fast-changing cityscape. We sat down with the director Kleber Mendoça Filho to talk about his debut feature.

Do you think your film challenges many notions people might have of Brazilian crime films?

For me it has been a big surprise to slowly understand how the film really avoids a lot of expectations. For some people this is a negative thing because they want something to happen and then nothing happens. When this one character walks to have a swim in the ocean they expect a shark attack and when he just returns all wet they are disappointed. Although we have had quite a lot of shark attacks in that region it doesn’t mean that if you go swimming you’re going to lose an arm.

But because it’s a film there should be a shark attack.

Even the characters aren’t what you

expect them to be. Why do even tough guys turn out to have quite mundane lives?

One thing I hate about Brazilian films is that they are all made by upper class people. Filmmakers there are white and well off. A lot of the time when they depict lower classes, they are prejudiced even if they are well meaning. That’s the worst kind of prejudice as far I’m concerned. In these so-called favela movies every poor people is a criminal and then they just kill each other. I tried to show how my characters have lives outside the stereotypes.

I love the fact that you’ve used zooming as a cinematic tool. A lot of people don’t do that anymore. Why do you think that happens?

I think people are afraid of it because their knowledge of film culture doesn’t go back to the likes of Sergio Leone or the French New Wave. When you make a zoom, it’s almost like if the film states that it indeed is a film. It also goes with the fact that while I wanted this film to be almost social realism, I also wanted

Shooting on 35mm film definitely helps you get the feeling that you’re witnessing real life being lived although it’s actually fictional. Dont you think?

I feel very fortunate that I was able to do it on film. I don’t have a problem with digital but in my mind this film had to be shot on film. It’s part of the classic film language just like the zooms. If I shot it today I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it on film. It was actually one of the last 50 films shot on Technicolor.

It’s mind-blowing if you think that The Wizard of Oz from 1939 was already in Technicolor and then 70 years later my film comes out and it’s one the last films shot that way. It’s just incredible.

Once upon a time there was this boy in the Brazilian city of Recife. He used to climb high into the trees and stone walls till he was shot down. This true fact is intertextually used in this contemporary urban story that reminds us about differences between particular societies and, even more, particular systems. But heroes are not about breaking boundaries. Heroes are about encouraging people fixing dysfunctional rules.

It is worth highlighting separately two aspects in this movie: the sound and the image. As the title already prompts, the space and sound are specifically important elements framing the story. These two essentials factors are the key tools creating the atmosphere of an almost ridiculously unsafe neighbourhood. There’s this scene when on the street corner the last member joins the private security team. The sound that reminds us of some older thriller movie was dramatically strong and undoubtedly noting the key moment that something is about to change in the story.

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it to be very cinematic in a classic sense. So we had widescreen, zoom lenses, wide lenses and a tripod.

I hate the hand-held style of today’s films where they have the nose of an actor in focus and the ear isn’t.

It doesn’t show me what the rest of the film’s world looks like. I just want to see where the film happens. I want to see Russia and London.

Another exceptional sound that repeatedly follows the whole plot is the constantly barking neighbour’s dog that drives a mother of two into madness. It is quite symbolic.

You can hear this constant reminder of the unsecure neighbourhood. But then again, the dog keeps on barking at completely wrong objects. The sound of barking looses the meaning of it - to inform about danger. It’s like an allusion to the lack of awareness of the system of a specific society.

This film is the image as the fragment of the space and time of particular culture. These slow motion frames coming closer and closer towards the back of one of the character that, at one point, is high on a balcony. There’s nothing else in the frame but the back of the character, the urban scenery of the variety of voiceless tower blocks without a single piece of natural landscape in the air. And it’s an absolute opposition to the sound as these shots were significantly silent. I definitely felt this hot and still air in these frames that constantly were segmenting the film.

Neighbouring sounds is the first fiction feature of the director. The film has already been impressively awarded. I must put a remark on successfully realistic situations and dialogs, well applied soundtrack, quite attractive synthesis of social realism and horror elements and even though I’m trying to keep it cool - the photography is jus extremely beautiful.

Kleber Mendoça Filho

review by Vaidė Legotaitė (Lithuania) interview by Sami Pöyry (Finland) nisimazine kaunas // 13

Angel’s Share

Spain

New feature of Palme D’or winning director Ken Loach takes us to Scotland.

Angels’ Share, which also competed in Cannes and won the Jury Prize, tells a story of Robbie (Paul Brannigan), whose girlfriend, Leonie (Siobhan Reilly), gives birth to their son and from that moment on Robbie tries to start a new life, without drugs, aggression and crimes. He gets interested in becoming a whisky expert but people from the past are not always so eager to give him a second chance.

Spain joins a long line of films where the seemingly separate destinies of its characters are tied together in the hope that some profound statements might wait at the end of the process. Luckily the number of characters is kept to a minimum this time since even now the structure almost suffocates the drama.

by Anja Salomonowitz, Austria

by Ken Loach, UK

The film probably shows all of the most popular stereotypes on Scots and Scotland. In the background of Glasgow and the Highlands the genuine characters speak original incomprehensible dialect and make fun of shepherds and people wearing kilts. Moreover, Ken Loach also reveals rather unpleasant images: alcoholism, violence, delinquency and street fights, spiced with an extreme amount of swearwords. However, the setting is created with love and warm irony which softens things up.

Even though you sometimes get suspicious the whole film is one big whisky commercial and the storyline gets a bit cheesy, Ken Loach stays loyal to himself. You can recognize his fondness to his characters that live in socially problematic environments and struggle to make their lifes better.

Not for the first time the director raises questions on how to overcome the aggression without being aggressive back, how to live with your mistakes and how to come out from previous vicious surroundings which do not let you go.

The director manages to create hope when it seems that everything is possible. The story he tells us is not pretentiously exceptional, it follows all the requirements of the mainstream plot. On the other hand, Ken Loach has always been considered as a storyteller and Angels’ Share is a story full of light and laughter, as well as promoting whisky, of course.

Ugnė Gudžinskaitė (Lithuania)

nisimazine kaunas // 14

The film starts with a car crash. A nameless man crawls out of the trunk thinking he’s in Spain rather than Austria. A countryside priest finds him at the side of the road and hires him to do some renovation on the town church.

This way he meets a divorced icon painter whose ex-husband is tormenting her by not letting go of their relationship. This story is intercut with a tale about a man so deeply addicted to gaming he’s ready to sacrifice everything in order to keep feeding his beloved slot machine.

The economy of storytelling requires the destiny of the game addict to be tied to the other stories at some point. This is already suggested earlier in the film through some clever visual references but ultimately feels more like a necessity than a proper dramatic outcome.

Luckily the first time writer-director Anja Salomonowitz is an able filmmaker who has a good grip on the tone of the film and creates interesting situations for her characters. Especially the story of the icon-painter unravels fascinatingly, spicing it’s dramatic events with dark humour. The main problem is that there’s just too much material and too little done with it. Films like this often make the mistake of confusing the complexity of the storytelling technique for a statement about the world.

In a way the slot machine works as an effective metaphor both for the dreams and the film, as it ultimately turns every seemingly good opportunity into a series of disappointments. Sadly the whole film is patterned in a similar way as it just seems to wait for some proverbial jackpot to tie things up together. And while the film certainly ends in a logical point, it does so in such a neat way that the viewer is left to wonder if simply closing the loop can be considered a real resolution.

If this review sounds overwhelmingly negative it’s because the film could have been so much more. As it is, Spain remains more like a well crafted puzzle than a deeply involving drama.

Sami Pöyry (Finland)

Night No. 1

Kolka Cool

Trance, slow movements, French music and dancing bodies. In a crowd there is just one couple. The twisted Mr. and Mrs. Nobody. Nameless, lifeless and shapeless. Met by a coincidence of circumstances yet changing each other’s life forever. They will never again be the same as they were before that night. They have grown up.

Kolka Cool is a film about boredom, but this comedy will definitely not bore you. Moreover, if you’re from around Latvia it will even be more entertaining. Kolka Cool shows us a short impression out of the not really exciting life of Andzha (Artuss Kaimins), who lives in a small village. He is about to get married to Simone (Iveta Pole). He spends his time hanging around with his friends, drinking, driving, smoking and beating up random guys.

by Anne Emond, Canada

by Juris Poskus, Latvia

Women are usually much more emotional, intuitive and open minded. Perhaps that is why at this year’s Kaunas International Film Festival visitors had a possibility to see so many films directed by women and, at the same time, very deep looks into the world of the female. Most times women appear just as supportive roles, but Night No.1, with its ordinary story and really strong characters, differs from the norm. This fact has a particular strong impact on the viewer thanks to an effective and impressive performance by actress Catherine de Léan, which has been accumulating award nominations for the role.

Almost entirely shot in one apartment and with only two actors, the plot of Anne Emond`s first feature is simple and at the same time brilliant, also earning several award nominations for its originality.

An inattentive eye sees what is obvious - a shallow layer that can be understood and taken from a negative perspective. But if you, just for one moment, wandered what is the essence of the universe and what is your part in this world, the film Night No.1 will look very familiar and significant.

Moreover I could say that I’ve never seen a film that so perfectly answer the eternal and the rhetorical question – what does it mean to be human?

Anne Emond doesn’t try to prove anything. Night No.1 is not just the same usual banal story turned into a subtle drama about the development of relationships and self-discovery. If it would be necessary to say just a single word about the story, I would choose correct - because that’s what it is.

The film reveals the several truths about human nature.

Ugnė Česnavičiūtė (Lithuania)

Kolka Cool is the second feature film of Latvian filmmaker and producer Juris Poskus. He directed several award winning documentaries. On top of that he won several prizes for his first feature. The fact that he is a documentary maker can be easily seen in the characters of Kolka Cool.

Though the dialogues might sound absurd at first, they are more realistic than the “normal” overly constructed conversations in commercial films.

Poskus seems to understand that people don’t always talk about things that make sense and even more often might just speak to interrupt an awkward silence. Therefore, the dialogues are recognizable and even funnier, because you realize you have had, at least once, the exact same weird bored conversation.

It seems as if Poskus wants his actors to behave in the same manner as in Robert Bresson’s films. In his films, such as Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), Bresson attempts to not let his actors act, but do scenes over and over again, until there is none of the theatricality left. Just as in Kolka Cool, his films are shot in black and white. It seems as if Poskus neither lets his actors act and in his films this leads to a humorous portrayal of carelessness and general boredom.

Apart from the absurd reality, some scenes are beautifully shot. In one particular scene we can see Simone and a friend walking in the sea.

With the backlight of the sun they become anonymous shades. It is as if anyone could end up in their position of general boredom. Since the characters don’t expect anything exciting to happen, they don’t really seem to be able to break out of it neither.

Kolka Cool is a humorous comedy, because of the combination of realism, boredom and the non-emotional acting. All of it is shot in black and white, just as the characters think, in black and white. Neither their thoughts nor their world is composed out of colour. Kolka Cool succeeds very well in making life funny even if it seems totally boring to the protagonists.

Zowi Vermeire (The Netherlands)

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Keyhole

Donoma

Twisted Canadian director Guy Maddin created, in his latest movie Keyhole, a surrealistic, experimental and completely bizarre Odyssey of a man called Ulysses.

Djinn Carrénard‘s debut feature, Donoma, tells us three stories of young women, challenging concepts of love, social roles, identity and faith. With an eclectic plot, this dynamic film takes place in Paris; a Spanish teacher falls into ambiguous relationship with her student, a photographer starts an experimental mute romance with a stranger and an agnostic girl seeks for signs and relieving answers to her troubles.

by Djinn Carrénard, France

by Guy Maddin, Canada

The name of the main character perfectly describes the form of this movie.

Just like James Joyce’s stream of consciousness technique shaped in his famous novel Ulysses, Maddin manipulates us with strange images and a style of epileptic editing, rather than with experimental prose.

This movie was created as a cocktail of film history, including early XXth century German expressionism, American gangster’s movies, Film Noir and even Luis Buñuel surrealism. Therefore Keyhole is like an overfilled glass, yet in my opinion, it would provoke a much stronger impression as a short film, as the film feels too tiring; too many effects and a unnecessarily complicated plot.

Maddin claims that inspiration for this movie came from his own vivid and bizarre dreams. Therefore he visualized them for the purpose of showing a mad mans mind. The director also described his movie as a “music for the eye” which doesn’t need any deeper understanding, therefore it can be considered very Avant-Garde.

In fact Keyhole was a perfect example of how editing works with a twisted plot. Maddin proved how we can create different connotations just by bending classical editing rules. Therefore his movie perfectly fits the wide angle section of the Kaunas International Film Festival, which presents the idea of how movies are made.

Just by looking through the Keyhole, we can come up with a lot of different interpretations. It can have some resemblance to Dante’s Divine comedy, Homer’s Odyssey, mythological Orpheus and Eurydice´s love story. But this is not that kind of movie. It doesn’t need proper understanding. Keyhole was created as an experience, so for that, Guy Maddin could be considerate as strictly experimental.

Donata Juskelyte (Lithuania)

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The widely escalated tag for Donoma would sound like “the film made with 150 euros and a digital camera”; however, this is not the fact itself which makes the film stand out. Carrénard uses it properly in photography: close-ups, moving camera and tricks with out of focus make it very intimate. This impression is strengthened by absolutely sincere acting and brilliant dialogues. You feel like observing a real neighbourhood drama.

Nevertheless, Carrénard, who himself was film director, scriptwriter, photographer and editor, pays a tribute to aesthetic pleasure lovers. Bright colours and a dynamic montage fit the fast timing of shifts between storylines. One would get an impression that the storylines are too sketchy and not fully developed.

Events may seem to pretentiously come out of nothing. On the other hand, the film focuses more on characters than on narrative; it highlights the common factor of moods and situations. In this case, eclectic attitude does not allow an audience to get too deep into one character or storyline and judge it. Contrary, it helps to generalize them. Of course, the chaotic style is a double edged sword and in periods the attempts to bring a more sentimental mood feel a bit naïve or superficial. Especially scenes depicting the relationship between Salomé Blechmans’ character and her sister, who is struggling with leukaemia.

It would be wrong to claim that the plot lacks an unifying idea. One of them is issues of social roles and status. Even in the first scene the couple gets into an argument, summarised with a phrase: “we’re different, and that’s it”, while the main idea leading Laura Kpegli’s character to launch her experiment is that everyone has criteria they judge on people. All of the characters feel the pressure when they overstep the public mark, and conventions of society is always present, even in your own bedroom. In that way Djinn Carrénard, as a voice from Paris suburbs, convincingly portrays nowadays society.

However, the director avoids the risk of getting preachy. In any way the characters are not reduced to stereotypes; their versatile humanity and vulnerability are captivating. All of them are driven by the search of love and the relationship between men and women. Social contradictions are more needed to hide personal fears and lack of tolerance. Donoma with no doubt is a very promising debut and one of the most shining examples of today’s guerrilla filmmaking.

Ugnė Gudžinskaitė (Lithuania)

Beast Paradise

Alps

Estelle Larrivaz’s first feature Beast Paradise (Le Paradis des bêtes) combines family drama with thriller elements. Dominique (Stefano Cassetti), an emotionally unstable man, beats his own wife, Cathy (Géraldine Pailhas), and decides to leaves his own pet shop in France to flee to Switzerland with his children Clarisse (Valentine Klingberg) and Ferdinand (Léon Brachet). While Cathy, after recovering in hospital, tries to find a trace of her family, Dominique multiplies his attempts to settle a new life in skiing resort, telling the children his own interpretation of the story.

Yorgos Lathimos had a breakthrough with his previous film Dogtooth, a film about a spectacularly dysfunctional family. His new feature Alps features people whose problems might reach just as symbolic heights but they are also closely tied to basic human dilemmas.

by Estelle Larrivaz, France

by Yorgos Lathimos, Greece

In the middle of all these events the children stand out. It is difficult for Clarisse and Ferdinand to forget their previous idyllic family life, reflected in the neatly filmed initial shots. They cannot act sufficiently as their understanding of reality is still full of dreams and fairytales. It is here that the drama of the film is at its strongest: helpless children being lost in the harsh world of adults.

However, it is not easy to follow the film`s movement. The storyline and characters are rather flat and inconsequent, so the audience has to guess and read quite a few unclear gaps left in the plot, leaving the story pretty ambiguous. The ingenious decision to bring some more suspense to a typical family drama film is also sometimes failing. The more it becomes like a thriller, the stronger is a tendency to define protagonist and antagonist, but then it is not an impartial and realistic family story anymore. Finally, you realize there is no logical ending, which would fit to both genres.

Beast Paradise is not only the Estelle Larrivaz’s first feature, but also her first film after an 11 years break, where she took a challenge of writing the script and directing the movie. Maybe coping with several tasks at the same time was too ambitious in this case, yet sensitive acting and thorough photography smoothes it over. Beast Paradise, as an attempt to shoot a different family drama, highlights the problem this genre still needs to deal with.

Ugnė Gudžinskaitė (Lithuania)

The film gets its name from a company whose workers can be hired to be surrogates for recently deceased people. This is presented as a kind of perverse consolation for grieving families who don’t want to let go of their beloved relatives.

The group operates under a rigid hierarchy led by a man called Mont Blanc.

The most troubled of the actors in Alps is played by Aggeliki Papoulia, already seen in Dogtooth, but sadly not in many other films. She is a nurse by day andthe dead wife of a lamp salesman by night. One day a badly injured girl is brought to the hospital where she works in and she immediately takes a special concern for her. When the girl dies, she fatefully decides to substitute her without Mont Blanc´s consent.

This act of defiance is the single time where the oblique style of the film goes wrong. It is hard to miss the fact that Papoulia’s nameless character works as a rogue agent and the weight of her actions are difficult to assess until the very end of the film. Otherwise the success of the elliptical style is a testament to the skill of Yorgos Lanthimos, who’s able to introduce many logical variations of the basic theme without actually laying out any background stories.

The film makes an important point by showing that reconstructing the lives of the deceased doesn’t just mean replaying past events but also refining them.

Death is horrifying partly because of the total loss of control involved and yet escaping this fact only leads to new dead-ends. Alps finds many cinematic ways to depict this dilemma. The carefully off-balanced cinemascope compositions effectively convey a sense of past and present lives being lived under constant scrutiny.

The focus is often in characters who reside in the corners of the frame, their backs turned toward the camera. Because of this, large areas in the center of the frame are left completely out-of-focus. This emphasises how the watcher, the one in control, is often blind to the matters in front of him. Maybe this also explains why the customers never complain about the mechanical quality of their paid actors.

The obsession with power and control may lead to horrific results in the film, but the control of the subject matter shown by Lanthimos and his actors ensure that Alps is a magnificent piece of filmmaking.

Sami Pöyry (Finland)

nisimazine kaunas // 17

in focus

The Representation of Women

The various portrayals of women at this year´s selection of the Kaunas International Film Festival cause quite a healthy stir at the daily editorial meetings of Nisimazine Kaunas. Different people had different interpretations of these visions, mainly caused by the controversial film by Estonian Yevgeny Pashkevich lastest film, Gulf Stream Under The Iceberg. Recognizing new trends in modern cinema, both good and bad, two of our journalists decided to start a battle of ideas and perspectives and an opportunity, which could not be missed, arose out of nothing. Here we publish just a few extracts of those debates.

interview

In several films at this year´s Kaunas International Film Festival women are represented as evil or sinful because of being sexually active or a seducer. In this piece I’ll mainly focus upon Gulfstream under the Iceberg and People Out There. In these films it seems as if the women are bad because of their sexuality and the men are merely “victims” of their own desires, not able to control themselves. What’s problematic about this?

In both People Out There and Gulfstream under the Iceberg women hardly speak. That is not necessarily a problem in itself, but when they speak it is with the intention to seduce. Thus, they are reduced to being an object of sexuality, rather than having any rational intentions.

In Gulfstream under the Iceberg the character Lilith is interesting for my case. In the beginning of the film it is mentioned that Lilith is made of the same substance as Adam and not of his rib. By this it is suggested that she is equal to Adam and neither good or bad. However, throughout the film she is portrayed as a devilish seducer that destroys every man she has “conquered”. She is bad for seducing men and the men are victims of

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their desires and can’t help it. This idea goes back to the old phenomenon in which a man was not convicted for a rape he comitted because he couldn’t help the fact that his sexual desires were awakened by a beautiful woman that behaves sensual. In a way this can also be seen in the scene in which the rich upper-class girl from People Out There gets raped by the main character. In that scene it is as if he almost punishes her for looking at him and “seducing” him.

In the case of Gulfstream under the Iceberg the men don’t rape Lilith, but it seems as if they are victims of her sexuality and their own desires, while it’s in fact their own choice. However, the film doesn’t portray them in such a manner and portrays Lilith as bad and sinful, because she is a seducer.

In a weaker version this can also be seen in the character Simone in Kolka Cool In another way the same portrayal applies to the sister of Cracker in People Out There. She works as a webcam girl. In one scene the main character, Jan, starts crying and screaming at her as she takes out her clothes. He is repulsed by her because of her sexuality and willingness.

As well, her brother beats her up for being a webcam girl. The only part she plays in the film is being the rejected seducer. Throughout the film she remains a flat character, a sexual object, in the same manner as Katrina in A Night Too Young.

All in all, it seems as if a woman can’t be good and sexually active in almost all of these films. One could almost call it a Madonna-whore complex. A woman can only be good if she is not sexually attractive.

Zowi Vermeire (The Netherlands)

Gulf stream under the iceberg, by Yevgeny Pashkevich, is the film which called out different opinions about the way women are treated. Are they supposed to be portrayed as FEMME FATALE, obsessive sexual objects or these women signify a free spirit?

The main character Lilith was not recognized by Adam as his equal but she was created from clay like himself and not from his rib. This suggests the idea that she is an independent human being, in a similar way to the first man. Her decision to run away means that she is a free spirit.

Even if director shows a lot of female flesh in this movie, it doesn’t mean that they are just sexual objects. Lilith is sexually free and an independent spirit. The way she controls and possesses men shows her sexual emancipation. Some male characters even this this woman is neither good nor bad, she is sinless. In feminist theory there are strong arguments that male directors portray women as passive victims. Lilith is definitely nor passive nor a victim. Pashkevich showed the woman who went out of Eden by her own choice. Therefore this female homunculus was able to control men. She was an active character and not just a passive frigid woman.

Saara Cantells movie “Stars above” also deals with free spirits and women feminist nature. This film doesn’t concentrates as much on fe-

male sexuality but it talks more about their choice to isolate themselves from the outside world, or to free themselves from social roles.

The changing roles of the three main heroines in this movie signifies the idea that society is also changing. Therefore the Femme Fatale concept is not so terrifying anymore.

There are some strong female characters in other l films as well. Louise from “Sister”; Magdalena from “Spain” and the female teacher from “Donoma”. They look fragile but at the same time they are strong and independent. Some of these women have a power to control men as if they were created form clay and not form Adams rib.

In film theory there was always a strong conflict between feminist and misogynistic male directors but it’s not so easy for men to create and accurate portrait of female psychology. Therefore in this year’s festival Yevgeny Pashkevich showed us just a glimpse of a free spirited Femme Fatale, while directors like Saara Cantell went deeper into the world of a wild women.

Donata Juskelyte (Lithuania) nisimazine kaunas // 19

identity

In the bedroom

Minimalistic in form, psychologically tense yet delicate at the same time.

In the bedroom, the polish Tomasz Wasilewski´s multi-awarded debut feature, is all this and much more.

We caught up with the director to find more about his surprising first film.

How did the inspiration come to make this film?

The first inspiration for me was a French movie called Woman Under the Bridge.

When I saw the first scenes it inspired me to write Edita’s chat. Also finding a real internet cafe which is basically used for people who are going to meet or going on a sex dates. It was a very intimate space and when I found that place I was very inspired by it and started to write the script.

But in the end you decided not to use the cafe. Why? Yes, I cut out a lot of scenes I really loved because now the movie lasts for 76 minutes and with all those scenes, which I also think were very good, the film

would be too long. So I cut out half an hour of the movie. I realised when I was cutting it that without those scenes the film did not lose its sense. So I decided to give less than more.

Where there any especially specific interesting moments during the production?

Actually the funny thing is when we have the scene when Edita is running on the bridge. She runs quite fast. And as it was like an almost non budget movie we didn’t have the right equipment so the camera man was on the roller blades. He was rollerblading backwards in front of the actress.

You also have some awards for your documentary. Is this what are you trying to do - to show possible but real life?

It’s never going to be like real life. It’s a fiction feature. But what I love about the movies is I try to get as close to the character as I can. The people are the most important to me. That’s why I also use a lot of master shots in this movie. For me

There are few scenes with water that looks quite meaningful. Does it have a symbolic value?

It doesn’t have symbolic value for me but as I notice there’s a lot water in my work. In my next movie half of it is on a swimming pool. There’s always water.

I don’t even know why. When I look for locations I always look for concrete stuff mixed with water. I don’t know why. That’s why I love this place (note: Nemunas island). When I was walking there with a friend I said I want to shot my movie here. I love this kind of places. Maybe my mind is trying to tell me something.

You already mentioned your future film, which will be called Skyscrapers Flowing. Will it be different from In The Bedroom or in a similar direction?

I finished shooting at the beginning of September. I had like 10 days of editing before I came here. I saw the material and I think it’s going to be similar, but obviously different as well.

This very non-Polish film from Polish director (who is already working on postproduction of his second feature film) tells a story of Edyta (Katarzyna Herman) – a middle aged woman, who ran away from her family to Warsaw. With no money in her pocket or roof over her head, she decides to use the internet to take advantage of horny men without actually sleeping with them. The plan goes quite well until she meets Patryk (Tomasz Tyndyk) – A lonely artist, who wishes more than just a one night stand.

The story doesn’t reveal many details about characters. It doesn’t explain why Edyta left home or what issues she had with her husband. Patryk’s personality and past are mysterious as well. All this has been done intentionally. Such a withholding way of telling the story causes viewers to rethink the film’s plot long after watching the movie. Additionally, it also allows the audience to form personal connections with the characters by filling in the blanks, by projecting their own different personal problems into the lives shown onscreen.

review

interview

when I use the master shots I get this uncomfortable silence and all the human noises. When actors stop to play and they have to be on the screen and they know it is a master shot, it is when all the real stuff happens. They are becoming the characters and stop being actors. This is an amazing thing and that’s why I love it.

The script was written step by step – without knowing exactly how and where it would end. The writing itself was as much of a journey into unknown for director as it is for film audiences. All roles were drafted on paper with specific well-known actors in mind: a strategy that worked out really well. These famous actors (K. Herman, T. Tyndyk, Agata Buzek, Miroslaw Zbrojewicz) agreed to work for free (film received no official funding, which makes this movie so much more astonishing) because they really liked Wasilewski’s script.

The main thing that stands out is the precision with which this movie was created. Tomasz Wasilewski worked as assistant director for theatre and in such movies as Antichrist (Lars von Trier) and The Woman That Dreamed About a Man (Per Fly). He has seen a lot, learnt a lot and knows exactly what he wants and how to do it. For example, this film has only one scene of improvisation, but even then the director defined exact boundaries that didn’t allow much freedom. Such precision worked out really well in the end.

Even the duration of this film – 76 minutes feels right – there was no unnecessary (yet so common nowadays) extension of certain subplots that have no impact on audiences.

In the Bedroom is an interesting and well crafted story, unfolding mainly by actions and internal conflicts that help viewers understand the sub textual meaning without shoving it in their faces. Director Tomasz Wasilewski is constantly learning, always observing the world around him and drawing both inspiration and ideas from it. Such qualities are rare, but obviously they influence his filmmaking style in a unique way.

Tomasz Wasilewski

review by Saulius Kovalskas (Lithuania) interview by Vaidė Legotaitė (Lithuania) nisimazine kaunas // 23

Tutti Giù

Part of the official selection at the Locarno Film Festival, the first feature film of young Swiss director Niccolò Castelli tells a true story about three different yet very connected personalities. Tutti Giù provides a very unnatural look into the lives of nowadays youth. After the screening we asked director Niccolò Castelli some questions about his film.

How did you decided to create a movie about young people lives, about their problems? Di it came up out of your own experiences?

The film is based on true stories of guys, young people, who are close to me. They are friends of mine and the story really happened similarly in real life. When it happened I had an idea to tell the story, because I was deciding what I want to do in my life. I was just editing my degree short film for school and suddenly something interesting, emotionally and intellectually, happened and I started to write those stories.

This is your first long feature film and you also wrote the screenplay for it.

What was more difficult – to write the story or turn it to the film?

I realised that i knew more about directing about, because I had already done some short films, some music videos, some documentaries, but in writing I did a bit less, so it was frustrating and more difficult to write the story. It wasn’t quite that hard, but it was a challenge.

Sports plays very important role in the film – skiing, skating and ice hockey.

Is it something that you like yourself?

I practise and I love sport, but I am not very interested in following sports or go to competitions. For me sport was a good topic to tell about the fight we all have in our lifes. We have to fight to do what we want to do. If we have a talent we have to fight to use this talent in our life.

Sport was a little bit metaphoric to me this story.

How did the shooting of this film improved you as a film maker and as a person?

I think I already knew that I wanted to work in this world, but before the movie I was also saying that I am unable to do long feature movies. I don’t know how to do it, I can’t, it is not so easy. Now I am always searching, making a journey to decide what kind of stories I want to tell. I think I know that I want to tell stories in my life, to create documentaries, maybe in the future even do theatre.

Loud music, graffiti and your friends as your family. This is a film about loners, youth and the tragic events that can change your life in a minute. Tutti Giù is the first feature film of Niccolò Castelli. It tells us three stories. One of a graffiti artist, Edo (Nicola Perot; one of a 17-year old skier, Chiara (Lara Gut), who suddenly gains huge popularity by winning a silver medal; and one of Jullo (Yanick Cohades), a skateboarder who can always find the sunny side in life. Niccolò Castelli has been closely related to each of these stories and took inspiration from the experiences of those around him to write the script. Thus, a film based on true events.

review

interview

Which character was the most difficult to develop and to distance it from reality?

All three characters have some parts that were really hard to develop. It was very important for me to line up the psychology of the characters and also to have a strong story for them. Sure it was quite hard to describe Edo – the graffiti artist. There are just six or less dialogues in the movie, so it was hard to write it on the screenplay. My producer was always asking who is Edo. Even though, at the end he is one of the most beautiful characters, but writing about him was really hard.

The music is great in this film since it represents the youth that is central to the story. Loud rock music is mingled with more peaceful songs that altogether represent the emotions of the characters. In general there is not a lot of dialogue in the film; it rather attempts to use its cinematographic techniques to the ultimate by showing and not telling. A hug, a look at someone or something, a face that slowly changes from happiness to disappointment: it tells us more than a thousand words could.

The simple and easy, though tragic, narrative will probably sweep you along with all of its emotions.

However, it’s a recognizable feeling. The story is, though based on true events, not entirely new. It’s about love, death and growing-up, all themes we can easily recognize. What might strike you is the lack of parents in the film. Friends seem to constitute the family of Jullo. Edo is always strolling through the city, searching for inspiration and empty walls. Each main character is a loner, though they are all lonely in a different manner. It seems that you can be lonely even when you’re always surrounded by people.

All in all, Tutti Giù is an easy, entertaining film for a lazy afternoon. The music is intense; its cinematic process is optimally used and the actors are not bad to look at either.

Niccolò Castelli

review by Zowi Vermeire (The Netherlands) interview by Ugnė Česnavičiūtė (Lithuania) nisimazine kaunas // 25

People out there

People Out There is the first feature film of young Latvian filmmaker Aik Karapetian. It gives a short look into the complicated life of Jan (Ilya Shcherbakov), who hangs on the streets with his friend Cracker (Eduard Murashov). After the screening at Kaunas International Film Festival we met the director.

What is your main source of inspiration for making films?

I mainly take my inspiration from other directors, like Kubrick, Scorcese, films like Taxi Driver for instance. If I don’t know how to shoot a certain scene, I think about the films of those directors and imagine how they would do it. I don’t take my inspiration from real life.

However, there was a guy in my secondary school that was called Cracker, just as in the film.

What was different about making a feature film as opposed to your earlier short films?

Shooting a short film takes two or three days, but a feature film takes up 25 days. I see cinema as a sport. You have to be always ready to get up from your bed to work. For a feature film you really have to be in shape.

The film begins with a shot over the outskirts where most of the film takes place. The film ends with the same shot as well. What were you attempting to show with it?

It was to show the point of view from the audience, who are not familiar with these outskirts. You get a short clip from the world the main characters are living in. In Latvia some people didn’t like the ending, because it does not give you an answer. I did that on purpose. It is important for me to have a story after the ending.

What will you next film look like?

I started with a horror movie before I started this film. Thus, People Out There should be my second film. The film will be quite different from People Out There since it’s a genre movie; horror. I hope it will come out in February.

The first feature film by young Latvian director Aik Karapetian, People out there, offers quite an interesting look at working class society. The story depicts the life of Jan, a young struggling lower class young man who is at the edge of a personality break down. After seeing a beautiful upper class woman, Sabina, he starts wondering about personal changes. He wants to get into that attractive world, but to do that, he has to lose his friend and the environment that shapes his character.

The main characters are shown in such a real way that members of the audience may even wander if the actors might actually have real connections to the world they are portraying. They create a lifestyle that is recognisable in every society, so everyone can find something familiar to themselves inside this movie.

review

interview

What was your main interest in making this film?

I wanted to tell a story about how personality is formed by your background, by your family and culture. The film is how one can achieve one’s goals. In Jan’s imagined love for the girl from a higher class, he tries to convince himself he can change his skin and be part of the world the girl represents.

I now hate the film, because it feels I am too old for it. I could be proud of it when I would have made it when I was 25, but now I’m 29.

One of the most interesting parts of the plot is its religious aspect. At one point, Jan tries to find the way out his criminal life through this source, but not only is he not ready for such a change, the new world is also not welcoming him neither.

Discovering the true nature behind this God-worshiping group Jan`s attempts slow down or turns into an opposite direction.

Aik Karapetian`s vision shows us real life and characters, he doesn’t create a fairy tale as it is clearly seen through the film´s ending. Even though Jan´s lifestyle is barely changed, we can’t say that there aren’t any changes at all. Jan grows up emotionally, his relationship with his friend Craker becomes tighter, yet at the same time he is no longer afraid to stand against him.

The visual composition work plays a big part in this unique realism as well. I was pleased to see dark shadows and different angles making the story even more realistic.

The main idea that Aik Karapetian is sharing in his awardwinning movie is that there are people out there living their lives. Some of them are good-looking and richly dressed in expensive coats; others just steal them and try to hide all the past and all the bad things revolving around them. And in all of them there people inside, just waiting to be revealed in the way that is possible to them.

Aik Karapetian

review by Ugne Cesnaviciute (Lithuania) interview by Zowi Vermeire (The Netherlands) nisimazine kaunas // 27

A night too young

Crulic

by Olmo Omerzu, Czech Republic / Slovenia

by Anca Damian, Romania / Poland

When two 12-year-old boys buy a bottle of vodka for an older girl named Katerina, it is yet unclear what will happen to them when they stay a night at her place. A Night Too Young by Olmo Omerzu is an exploration of the border between the young and grownups. It challenges the problems of adulthood by placing the innocence of children amongst it.

The film Crulic – The Path To Beyond, by Romanian film director, screenwriter and producer Anca Damian, is an exception at Kaunas International Film Festival, since it is an animation feature. Moreover, it is one of the few exceptions in the field of animation itself, because it is a documentary.

Crulic – The Path To Beyond won many awards for the way it tells the tragic story of Claudiu Crulic, a Romanian citizen sent to prison in Poland for a crime he didn’t commit. In protest against the manner he was treated, Crulic went in a hunger strike, with severe consequences.

The film is well played out. At first you might be laughing about the absurd lack of responsibility when the boys are offered shots of vodka and cigarettes.

However, as the film takes you further into the night, the uneasiness starts to grow. The boys begin to feel uncomfortable with their situation and long for home, just like you. It seems that the adults do not take the responsibility you would expect them to take. Perhaps they are just as childish as the boys.

A Night Too Young contrasts very well the innocence of the children with the sometimes confusing world of adults. Several scenes portray this sharp contrast in a humorous manner. While the young boys play videogames, the two older men start to dance with Katerina. Only as she pulls out her underwear from under her dress, the boys watch with amazement to a spectacle they have never seen before. However, after a while you start to think, if these young boys where girls and Katerina a man, would this scene be humorous or rather shocking? What are you exactly laughing about? Confusing!

Though the boys play their part quite well, Katerina remains an absurd character. She seems to want free love, but it appears to be merely a tool in a struggle to search for something real. It appears as if she is merely made complicated for the sake of the story; otherwise she would never let the boys join their party.

A Night Too Young explores a strange night after New Year’s Eve with dark humour. It may raise some interesting questions about the innocence of the children. Nevertheless, it pretends the boys have nothing to do with it, are just passive spectators, victims and innocent. However, they could have chosen to not take the shots and be more assertive, which, as far as I know, a child of twelve years old can do.

Zowi Vermeire (The Netherlands)

nisimazine kaunas // 28

Some scenes may dwell on for too long, but what is shown in simple drawings is beautifully crafted. Photographs are mixed with illustrations and cardboard constructions, which creates an interesting combination of 2D and 3D images. It wakes you up and draws your attention with great efficiency.

The use of animation is very smart, since at first one might not expect animation to tell a story based on true events. Therefore, the viewer might look more critically at the story. I was challenged to think about what could be dramatized and what could actually have happened in reality. What is wonderful about using animation is that you can show the feeling that belongs to the story that is told instead of just focusing on reality. Though it might be an unreal representation, it will make the viewer feel and experience the reality of the mind. There is for instance one scene reminiscent of thw infamous baby scene in Danny Boyle´s Trainspotting, only in this case the ceiling starts to move and weird images appear because of hunger and rather then drugs.

Crulic – The Path To Beyond involves you emotionally into the story and will move you. While the story passes, you are more and more amazed about the choices that are made by Claudiu himself and even more by the choices of the officials and doctors. If you think about it, the story is terrifying, since Claudiu is innocent, couldn’t it happen to anyone?

Zowi Vermeire (The Netherlands)

Fish ‘n’ Chips

Found memories

‘Cyprus is not London!’ A Long living emigrant looses the awareness of home. The main character might still consider Cyprus as his native place but the movie highlights the unrolling feeling of disconnection felt in the homeland after living somewhere else for a long period of time.

You just don’t feel at home. You rather feel like a stranger no matter your nationality.

What is left there besides memories? I would like to state upfront that Found memories was the movie that I enjoyed the most at the International Kaunas Film Festival and after getting that out of the way I would like to take a look at the memories of the film itself.

There are Memories of a small fictional village, called Jotuomba, in Brazil: A place where people have forgotten how to die and where God instructed the only priest to padlock the gates of cemetery. Yet, at the same time, these people don’t remember how to live either. All Jotuomba residents appear to do exactly that: reside physically in the village, while mentally they keep on living in their memories of things long gone. It´s the only thing they hang on to. During the day they follow exactly the same routine throughout the years.

The elderly baker, Madalena, brings bread to Antonio, they have almost exactly the same conversations until a young photographer, Rita, stumbles upon the village.

by Elias Demetriou, Cyprus, Greece / United Kingdom

Fish and chips meals, as specific reference to British culture in the movie, becomes a metaphor about low paid workers’ life in London and the way they accept their condition as immigrants. The movie analyses the question of belonging and the natural need to be home. The main character decides to leave London and his work at a fish n’ chips shop so he could open another one in Cyprus. For sure, not everything goes as planned.

The feeling of being an emigrant is one of the reasonable side effects of the cosmopolitan way of life. There is no real archaic model of home any longer in contemporary society. It doesn’t define homogeneity between ones nationality, family members’ nationality, living place etc. The main character is a Cypriot emigrant in London who works with his German girlfriend. The enigma is: what kind of children they could have?

The story emphasizes the importance of emotional location by visualizing one’s complexity and process of searching for spiritual belongings.

Following the footsteps of the roots to find out that there might not be any.

The character, with the lost sense of identity, is suffering dehydration while watching the sunrise.

Elias Demetriou in his first full-length fiction film portraits something familiar to himself, emotions of the emigrants in modern day Europe.

Vaidė Legotaitė (Lithuania)

by Júlia Murat, Brazil / Argentina

Then there are memories of a beautiful cinematography by Lucio Bonelli.

Each scene was shot with photographic precision, where objects and characters interact revealing a complicated world of feelings and thoughts. For example, there was one amazing scene when Rita offers Madalena to listen to some new song. Dark background behind them, on one side of the screen is Rita, on another Madalena and in the middle headphones of an MP3 player – like a bridge between youth and senility.

Worth noting the memories of constant repetition as the story keeps repeating itself: baking bread, delivering it to Antonio, coffee afterwards, mass at church, lunch. Such repetition allows the viewer to experience the routine of the villagers and also notice details that would otherwise escape attention.

Another interesting thing is evolution of techniques used that complements characters inner progression as. At first the camera is stationary, long takes are used, people are shown from afar. But as Rita is introduced and starts affecting Madalena, methods change: the camera slowly moving around; characters shown up close; even a couple of songs as soundtrack.

There are just a couple unexplored memories left: Memories of amazing performance by the actress Sonia Guedes, who subtly portrays her character’s inner world and brings tears to audience’s eyes; Memories of the photography, which was used as a complementary detail to enhance problems of living in the past; Memories of this amazing first feature film by Júlia Murat.

Memories that slowly begin to fade after revisiting them so often.

Saulius Kovalskas (Lithuania)

Hemel

Private Universe

by Sacha Polak, The Netherlands

by Helena Trestíková, Czech Republic

Hemel, or Heaven, is a young fragile woman lost in her hyper sexuality. She acts like a detached lover with her one-night stand partners, but what provokes such behaviour? Hemel has an abnormal relationship with her father, which reminds us of the Electra complex. Probably she is attached too tight to her father figure and that is why she can’t love properly, nor be loved.

At one point in Private Universe, a documentary about a Czech family, we see children playing while on the soundtrack we hear Smetana’s composition Moldau. This scene reminded me of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, where he used the same piece of music in similar fashion. If the composition imitates the flow of the Moldau river, it also fits perfectly the feeling of people growing up and making their life decisions. It’s the sound of destiny at work. This choice of music also underlines why Private Universe can’t be considered a fully accomplished work.

In some parts of the movie she tries to act like men. She wears their clothes and she throws herself at them. Hemel is an active nymphomaniac and never a passive victim. She is like a Black Widow, who eats her partners after copulation. However, in this film we can also see a young woman who is on the verge of adulthood. She grew up without her mothers’ authority and that could be the reason why she doesn’t know how to act like an adult. Hemel creates her identity purely from her fathers’ model and as such she feels more comfortable acting like a man.

Visually sensual, the movie involves the viewer in the world of the main character and in the manner how she evolved in this sexual Odyssey. Hannah Hoekstra and Hans Dagelet portrayed powerful roles in this film, helping to a great extent the audience´s process of relating to the characters problems and even empathising with them. In particular this is possible with Hemel herself, who was acting like a lover but has never been loved before.

Director fragmented the plot in several “philosophic” sections, where the main heroine was going through Genital phase; Search for God; father and daughter relationship; and, almost at the end, Love.

Hemel`s soundtrack was chosen perfectly, as it reflects the changes in the main character at the same time as it adds some soul in this physical and anatomical film. There was also a lot of silence that created the feeling of pure visual pleasure for the viewer. Was this film really created just for the pleasure, or can we find something with a more lasting effect? I, myself am struggling with that question.

One of the film titles said “It won’t last long”. It seems that the director provokes the question: can we stage love and passion? Is there anything that really lasts or are we just left with savoury tea? Is this a film that deals with sexual identity while always leaving us with unanswered questions? If you want to find out the naked truth about passion and lack of love go and see struggles of Hemel.

Donata Juskelyte (Lithuania)

nisimazine kaunas // 30

The film tells the story of a Czech family through diaries and hours of home movies shot by a family friend. The family has three children but the film almost solely concentrates on the rascal boy Honza who grows up to be a confused pot-smoking young man and then a less confused but still pot-smoking free spirit. Their everyday reality is juxtaposed with the advancements in space travel - a connection that is in no way elaborated upon and therefore feels tacked on.

The structure of the film is a bit problematic since while the latter half is dedicated to Honza and his ruminations about his own upbringing, the first half makes no attempt to develop these questions. On the contrary, the first half seems to be rushing towards some twist that never comes.

Even the parents take Honzas decisions quite calmly, as evidenced by one christmas scene where they follow his wishes and casually share a joint.

Because the film is based on the recollections of the family itself, there’s not much room for critical analysis. The adult Honza is mildly critical about some of his parent’s choices but that’s it. Another missed opportunity comes from the fact that the father, who is also the narrator, has gone through the material many times over the years, so there’s no feeling of returning to the past on his behalf.

But while the prosaic documentary perhaps lacks the dramatic power Smetana’s music is hinting at, it could also be seen as a metaphor of human life where there aren’t many sharp turns but rather slow unnoticeable changes. Private Universe is an interesting peek into the history of one family but I’m afraid the same could be said about any other family whose history is this closely documented.

Sami Pöyry (Finland)

The Fourth Dimension

The Hunt

The Fourth Dimension is a portmanteau film where three directors from different countries have been commissioned to make short films under certain rules. The guidelines range from such as “Stray dogs are good. They can be really meaningful” to even more pretentious ones like “Challenge our commonly held assumptions on the fourth dimension”.

What will you think about this film movie if I reveal to you that it was part of the official selection and nominated for a Palm d´Or in Cannes? What about the fact that the main actor is Mads Mikkelsen, better known for his acclaimed performance in Adams Apple? Or the simple fact that The Hunt was also selected as the closing film in this year´s Kaunas International Film Festival? Probably, whatever opinions you might hear, this will always be a film that you´ll have to watch, check and prove it by yourself.

Once you do that one more opinion will appear, mainly based on your own experience.

by H. Korine, A. Fedorchenko and J. Kwiecinski, USA/ Russia/ Poland

The film begins with The Lotus Community Workshop by the American avant-gardist Harmony Korine. It stars Val Kilmer as a hack life coach preaching in a bowling alley for a group of less advantaged people. This part is actually quite funny since Kilmer is not only messing around with his goofy dialogue but also his own oddball public persona. As long as it’s all fire and brimstone, Korine’s portion is entertaining to watch, but when he goes out of the workshop for some mood pieces, there’s nothing much to see.

Usually the fourth dimension is considered to be time and this is how the second film Chronoeye treats it. The Russian director Aleksei Fedorchenko tells the story of a scientist who has invented a time machine, maybe to shed some light on his own troublesome past. What might have been an interesting idea gets bogged down by a naive love story and the implausible behaviour of the characters.

The last of the bunch is also the best by far. Jan Kwiecinski’s Fawns shows a bunch of Polish hipsters having fun in a desolate town from which everyone else has fled in a rush. Kwiecinski is first able to effectively convey their care-free attitude and then to tighten the screw naturally when things start to go sour. The psychological distance between the first and the last scene is impressive and the change of attitude never feels forced.

The movements of the actors and the camera are skillfully orchestrated, so this is also cinematically the most enjoyable slice of the film. Kwiecinski is a director to watch out for.

As a whole, The Fourth Dimension offers one good, one mildly funny and one poor episode. As for the guidelines given, none of the films is likely to challenge anyone’s perception of anything but such is usually the case with these anthologies, made quickly and on small budgets.

Sami Pöyry (Finland)

by Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark

The Hunt depicts the story of Lucas, who lives his life in a small community where everyone knows each other. One day a little girl tells a story and everyone believes it. The story is imagined, but it destroys Lucas’s life.

Do children never lie? How to know what is the real truth? These questions may play a part in the mind the viewer up until the end of the film, constantly waiting for a conventional shocking end so frequent on banal Hollywood stories or heavy-European dramas. But Thomas Vinterberg film is nothing like that.

The Hunt is refreshing in the sense that it mixes different explorations, complicated love stories and experiments. Since the first shot Mads Mikkelsen performance is so compelling that immediately you start to identify with him and wish a happy ending. However, who can’t like a little blonde girl even when she is lying? Which of the characters would be more deserved of the audience`s love? With these innovative ideas and a different presentation of a story the director completely changed concepts of protagonist and antagonist, showing it opposite to the established norms. Add to that a slightly cruel irony and this film can easily be claimed an audience favorite in all the festival.

Danish director and screenwriter Thomas Vinterberg examines, in an ironic context, the impact and the power of words – they hurt, they irritate and lie. What is one man’s or child’s influence on the whole community? In this year edition of International Kaunas Film Festival there were many films revealing children problems and their feelings in a wounded world. The Hunt reveals that the most complicated is condition is actually adulthood, because in adults personal character is already formed and it is really difficult to change it.

Ugnė Česnavičiūtė (Lithuania)

nisimazine kaunas // 31

The New World

Stars above

by Jaan Tootsen, Estonia

by Saara Cantell, Finland

Is it possible to change the world, to create a new one? And what if your dream do not depend only on you but also affects the whole community? These are the questions raised in Estonian documentary The New World by Jaan Tootsen. The film tells us about the New World Society, an initiative launched in 2006 by young people in Tallinn. The New World Society started as an idea for a neighbourhood. Turn it more organic, more socialising, more hospitable and more environmentally-friendly.

Things women loose and finds above the stars, listening to the sound of the universe paying on the radio. Finish director Saara Cantell, who is a well known figure at the Kaunas international film festival, showed us a very feminine story about three women from the same family but from different decades. They all shared one country house, same wounds and a feeling that they lost their wild spirit.

The film focuses on several people who started the initiative. They try to take everything with playfulness and an innocent irony. This is felt in the film itself. The director often puts together contrasting scenes in order not to get the story too heroic or dramatic. Even the very beginning of the film is shown as a commentary to news broadcasting while one of the activists runs around with a fake film camera complaining that someone has spit into its lens. The numerous musical episodes should also add attractiveness and dynamics to the whole course.

Nevertheless, when the film comes to its second half, everybody starts to feel a little bit tired: both the characters and the audience. The camera records compromises, frustrations and weaknesses, which seem to be a natural in process of every project, but here it gets rather extended.

It would be interesting to compare The New World with the other documentary show in Kaunas International Film Festival analysing a similar topic: Tomorrow by Andrey Gryazev. While the members of the New World Community try to meet everything with a smile, the activists shown in Tomorrow are uncompromising about their ideas. On the other hand, that toughness in the latter film creates a tension, which even gets stronger when heroes meet with hardships, whereas authors of The New World chose to avoid this scenario.

It stays unclear if the idea of New World Community is possible to fulfil.

But ideas may change and evoke other ideas. The New World stays as an inspirational film about another way of thinking and living.

Ugnė Gudžinskaitė (Lithuania)

nisimazine kaunas // 32

There is a bible written specifically for femininity, it’s called Women who runs with Wolfs by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. This film, in a way, is also about those women searching for a sense of free spirit through different decades.

There is Saima, Tuulikki and Sala. They all tried to find their identity by being closer to nature. Those women shared the same sky and the same loneliness.

It seems that Saara Cantell created this film in a bit of a feminist way. There are some moments who reflect problems of sexism in the mid of 20th century, where women supposed to identify with the roles of a housekeeper or a children bearer. We see how the roles have changed through those three decades.

Why could this film be worthy of our attention? Perhaps because women can find their lost feminine souls and men could have an opportunity to notice who is hiding behind those strict gender roles. Women are also human beings who can choose to travel with their own map of Dreams geography.

Female roles in this movie were portrayed perfectly by talented actresses (Irina Bjorklund; Meri Nenonen; Elin Petersdottir). The music of this film was also chosen accurately as it emphases the whole femininity. The redheaded women in this film show how some decisions can change the future of their daughters and how it is important to feel united with our own species.

In 2010 Saara’s Cantell movie Heartbeats won the audience award here at the Kaunas International film festival. I strongly believe that she could win it again with her new feature length movie Stars above as this is a movie which shares it’s soul with the audience.

Donata Juskelyte (Lithuania)

Secret

by Przemysław Wojcieszek, Poland The setting is simple. A man and a woman arrive at a house in the countryside where his grandfather lives. The old man has a secret concerning the Holocaust and the woman is eager to know the truth since she’s a Jew. The young man finds himself in a tormenting situation deciding whom to be loyal to.

Secret is a small film with three characters and mainly one setting. There is little dialogue and the director Przemysław Wojcieszek tries to keep things from stagnating by using jump cuts and recurring scenes where the characters gut fish in fast motion accompanied by abrasive music. But the thing is that even if you jump cut a boring scene to pieces it doesn’t come out any less boring.

The film was a microbudget venture made with little outside funding. DSLR:s were utilised and this viewer is once again left wanting for a more nuanced and deep focused imagery. For a film where nothing much happens between the mainly mute characters, the visual language is too dull.

I hear that the film has generated some debate in Poland where the issues of the Holocaust and Poland’s part in it are getting discussed. This is something that’s hard to argue against but the filmmakers seem to be doing the most annoying thing. Sometimes people believe that the weight of a serious context is enough to turn a vague film into a considerable piece of art. In this case they let the Holocaust do the heavy lifting when it should be exactly the opposite way. Serious subject matter asks for some serious work to be put into it.

Secret tries to beef up it’s narrative by making the young man a gay dancer and suggesting that there could be a some kind of a relationship between him and the woman. This doesn’t make the film any more tense because the characters are treated in way too symbolic a style to warrant any interest. Art house films these days are too fascinated by characters who won’t speak to each other. It spares the filmmakers the trouble of writing decent dialogue but looks stupid.

Whatever merit Secret has as a transgressive part of contemporary Polish culture, there’s not much in it for international audiences to discover. Now that filmmakers around the world have the option to tackle serious matters with cheap digital equipment, it is understandable that a lot of ill-conceived experiments get made. The fact that films like this don’t have good chances to come through traditional channels puts more pressure on the artists to be good. Secret, on the other hand, is the kind of film that gives art house a bad name.

Sami Pöyry (Finland)

special interviews

Marius Holst

interview

director of Kinf of Devil’s Island, Norway

King of Devil’s Island (2010) goes back to a true story from 1915. Nevertheless, it explores themes that are still relevant today. The young Erling (Benjamin Helstad) is send to Bastøy, an island on which young criminals are detained. As the injustices grow, the boys get more and more upset with their position. I had the opportunity to meet with the director of King of Devil’s Island to speak about his most recent work.

How did you get the idea to make a film about Bastøy?

I grew up in Oslo. Bastøy is half an hour drive from Oslo. My generation and the older generation all know about it. It was a mythical and infamous place. Your parents would threaten you that you would be sent to Bastøy if you behaved wrongly. Nonetheless, no one knew what was going on there. In 1915 these kids at Bastøy stood up against the adults. They attacked them in a harsh disciplined island.

I was wondering what could give them the courage and the nerve to stand up against the adults, which was an unusual thing to do in 1915.

How much of the film is fiction and how much is based on real life stories?

I can’t give you an exact percentage of course, but I can tell you that all the details - how the place was run, the governor, the housefathers, the punishments and the physical and sexual abuse – all of this happened on the island. Also the military that arrived after the rebellion, the isolation ward, everything is withdrawn from research. However, in any historical drama you always fictionalise the actual story.

Why did you choose to make a film based on a true story?

To me a story that has some root in reality is fascinating. This story was interesting, because it was not yet exposed. It is an interesting historical event, since these themes play along and are still relevant today; when evil things are done, who is the bad guy? Is the evil character the one that beats up the kids? Or the responsibility lies higher up with the governor, who allows this to happen? Bastøy is the micro cosmos of what is still happening nowadays. You could take the scandals of the Catholic Church or Guantánamo Bay and the same kind of themes are still there.

The film starts without letting the viewer know why the main character is send to Bastøy. Why did you choose to not tell this story?

We left that out on purpose. In the beginning we did plan to have a scene on how Erling ended up in Bastøy. In short clips it would be clear that Erling hurt someone by accident, at least he was provoked to act in such a way. Nevertheless, I felt his character became stronger and more interesting when you wouldn’t know whether he was good or bad.

interview by Zowi Vermeire (The Netherlands) nisimazine kaunas // 36

interview Kaunas International film festival invited one of the most famous Latvian directors, Laila Pakalnina, with her award winning documentaries 33 animals of Santa Claus and Crazy Snow. After the screenings of both of her films we had a chance to interview her.

What do you think about Kaunas International film festival the and screenings of non-commercial movies ?

I would love to stay here longer so that I could say something rational and objective. Now I feel very emotional about the festival. I love it here, and I don’t wanna sound just polite. I think we need these kind of events in Latvian, Lithuania and Estonia. For instance now in Estonia, they have just one great film festival, as well as in Latvia. It’s just that in our country it’s more commercially orientated. Of course sometimes they need these kind of films as well. Therefore I believe that it’s not so easy for the Kaunas festival to keep up with their goals, because they show non-commercial European films. Maybe we need to educate the audience for these kind of films.

How do you feel about Kaunas itself?

I think it’s very cinematographic city. Normally filmmakers go to the places like Rome and say “I see a film here”. Personally I see a good potential for Kaunas to be a film location. It is not perfect but at the same time it’s very cultural.

Laila Pakalnina

director of 33 animals of Santa Claus, Latvia Whats is unique about your documentaries, and how can a viewer recognize your style?

In my films, both documentaries and fiction, I try to use high quality picture, as well as good quality and creative sound. And as much as possible I try to film with a stable camera on a tripod, rather when using a portable one. Of course editing is very important for me as well, there are rules I always look up to. All of these things may not be my actual style, but this is what I prefer in the film-making process. Probably viewers could recognize my style because of slow rhythm in my films.

How do you feel as a female director in Latvia and what is the biggest challenge in this profession?

I feel fine because I’m not the only one out there. In the 19th century there was a lot of male painters or musicians but now things have change. They are a lot of female directors now. The main challenge for director is to be both physically and mentally the strongest in the crew. You can’t never be tired. When I started to make films, I said to myself: “I will not wait someone to open the doors for me, because as a director you are responsible for others as well as for yourself”.

How do you choose subjects for films?

When I come up with a new idea for a film, I somehow see the cinematographic potential in them straightway, because there are some things that you can’t explain with words. For me if it’s something explainable by words, it is not a film anymore. For example this women’s with 33 animals could be explained in just two sentences, but I chose to show her story, the rhythm of her life and all that mess around her.

How does your own life or personality reflect in your films?

I am a positive person, I like what I do, so my life revolves around making and watching films. Still when I’m making documentaries I become responsible for the people I film, but at the same time you can’t forever keep them with you. Therefore I always think how you can leave your film heroes.

Sometimes this is a bit problematic and sad.

What do you think about nowadays situation in Latvian film industry?

There is no film industry because we have just 4 feature films finished in 2012, two of them were started a long time ago. You couldn’t call this an industry but at the same time it is very important for countries like Latvia and Lithuania to have a film culture. Who else will make films in Latvian and Lithuanian language? We can’t relplace them with Hollywood productions.

interview by Donata Juskelyte (Lithuania) nisimazine kaunas // 37

music at kaunas

The Singing Revolution Music as a language for telling stories which cannot be told in words is a manner to express your most secret dreams and unite with those who feel the same. If music is such a powerful medium, what about music in film?

in focus nisimazine kaunas // 40

Music Moves The World – this is the title of how one of the film programmes of the International Kaunas Film Festival 2012. It consisted of 14 documentaries related to music in one or other way: creative documentaries, more resembling concert videos and music clips, biographical films and documentaries focusing on particular music events, movements or regions.

I would like to focus on two documentaries which perfectly fit the title of the programme: Lithuanian film How We Played the Revolution by Giedrė Žickytė and a voice from Estonia Kosmos ’68 by Peeter Brambat. Both of them turn to the history of the Baltic States and the massive impact of music in the social life in Soviet era, only Kosmos ’68 concentrates on hippie times and Estonian beatlomania in the 60s, while Žickytė’s film focuses on the late 80s, the time of the collapse of the Soviet regime. Movements for independence from Soviet Union in Baltic States will later be called The Singing Revolutions and they would seem to be among the most inspiring examples in history when music really moved the world.

It is worth mentioning that besides these recent documentaries, at least a few significant Baltic musical movies were shot in Soviet times, where criticism to regime was also very strong. In her film Žickytė uses extracts from Something Has Happened (1986) by Artūras Pozdniakovas, which could be described as an ingenious collaboration between music video and fulllength feature film, consisting from three novels full of surreal elements and concert shots. Another retrospective example also screened in IKFF 2012 is Four White Shirts (1967) by Latvian director Rolands Kalniņš, telling the story of a poet who writes song lyrics for a youth ensemble and struggles with censorship. For the first time the film was officially shown in 1986, when the Latvian songs written for the film had already achieved cult status.

As Žickytė admitted in her interviews that How We Played the Revolution was planned as a documentary about a Lithuanian music band called Antis, but eventually ended up not only as a view on Lithuanian rock music events in the 80s, but also as a reflection on the whole Independence movement.

There is a certain message in this film that you cannot separate music of those times from all the political circumstances, as rock music then became the flag for changes and freedom. Here it is interesting to compare this attitude to the one

Despite of plenty of archival passages in Kosmos ‘68, the film is combined as reminiscences of retired musicians. Their talking heads sentimentally glow and pour memories to the camera regretting there is so much they have already forgotten. Voice-over easily adds historical details, not mentioned by interviewees. While How We Played the Revolution is more like a puzzle put from authentic shots but it actually represents the really strong personal viewpoint of the director, who was too young to get an opinion on independence 25 years ago. The audience can still feel the childlike sincerity of the director towards the story she tells.

On the other hand, this is the main reason why Žickytė‘s film was criticised. Desirable and romanticised rhetoric expressed by philosopher Leonidas Donskis is taken as an unquestionable truth and lacks of historical objectivity. However, in the context of the rather unpretentious Kosmos ‘68, it becomes clear that the responsibility for historian narrative becomes a significant issue only when the film is strong enough to contribute to that narrative. And convincingly How We Played the Revolution is obviously the case.

How we played the Revolution

by Dovilė Žičkytė, Lithuania

Lithuania is a country of patriots. Or people who just simply love their country and its history. This can clearly be understood from the films which Lithuanian watched most during the year. The first two places were shared by Tadas Blinda: Legend Begins (Donatas Ulvydas, 2012) and The Other Dream Team (Marius Markevičius, 2012). Both films promote the love of the motherland, reveal the full beauty of the country and encourage to admire and to love it even more. In that perspective the third place undoubtedly will be taken by Dovilė Žickytė’s documentary film How We Played the Revolution (2011).

The film is created as a monument to the rock group Antis, which obviously, loudly but invisibly, raised the hopes of independence in 1984. Formed by two architects, apparently as a joke, the group became incredibly popular at that time in Soviet Lithuania. Insignificant songs, intellectual image and masks allowed them to survive in a world where friends can’t be separated from enemies. And at a time, when thoughts of freedom were too naive and

utopian, Antis started a movement. Without knowing what they are doing, they led a nation to the revolution.

The film is full of archival material, which sometimes is not very good quality, there are lots of interviews with famous Lithuanian people, well-known songs and that is what makes this documentary so attractive to Lithuanians. Very close view of history makes audience admire the spirit and passion of the people who have made the dreams of a small country come true.

Even though observing a film from a Lithuanian perspective, it is difficult to remain impartial, objective, because it’s a story of your own. The film can’t leave anyone without tears because it is a story of the revolution. A story about believing in man himself and in a brighter future.

To make a film a masterpiece you need to put your soul in it. Need to add love to hit the other’s heart. It needs to be done with infinite faith that others can identify with. Dovilė Žičkytė did even more than that because I believed it. I fell in love with the film – a film that really touches the heart.

review

expressed in Kosmos ’68, where historical events are presented as a background but it doesn’t really affect the interviewed people, they are more interested in music itself and its technical aspects.

text by Ugnė Gudžinskaitė (Lithuania) review by Ugnė Česnavičiūtė (Lithuania) nisimazine kaunas // 41

Tomorrow

by Andrey Gryazev, Russia

Criticise the society by not accepting its law of work-buy-die and create a type of art which can be considered as an act of vandalism against the government: this is the everyday life of the Russian street-art group Voina (War). The documentary by Andrey Gryaznev Tomorrow, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, invites us to spend 90 minutes with the members and founders of Voina, observing their underground daily routines and preparations for actions.

all the muses

This film, as emphasized in the beginning titles, does not pretend to focus on historical and objective truths. Andrey Gryaznev’s camera follows Voina wherever they go. We see conversations and arguments in the kitchen of the conspiratorial apartment, games with the son of Voina`s founders Vor (Thief) and Koza (Goat), a free-ganic style of looking for clothes, toys and other things in litter containers. We even witness the operation of theft at a food store. The audience gets a possibility to take a look as insiders.

The trust Voina members showed on the filmmaker, by letting him in, is impressive. On the other hand, publicity is the strongest weapon available to Voina and Tomorrow may be understood as just another action and Andrey Gryazev as a new member of the group.

However, Tomorrow is not only the portrait of Voina. Throughout most of the film we witness the preparation, process and consequences of one of their most known performance-art called The Palace Revolt, when Voina turned a police car upside-down and later uploaded the video in the internet. So the film becomes a study of the philosophy of a contemporary revolutionist.

Here one episode stands out: a home-made plasticine animation recreating the course of The Palace Revolt. It evokes contemplations on relations between being creative, playful and politically conscious and it also stunningly associates it with the other aspect of the story: educating a child in a revolutionary atmosphere.

Tomorrow, which is of course strongly politically orientated, shows the lifestyle of Voina´s founders: abandonment of indifferent and anonymous society and a will to change it. Thus they are made to live in this very day and to be always prepared for tomorrow.

Ugnė Gudžinskaitė (Lithuania)

At night I fly

Anton Corbijn: Inside out

by Michel Wenzer, Sweden

by Klaartje Quirijns, Netherlands

The walls are thick. The fences are long. The sentences are high. At Night I Fly by Michel Wenzer, is a documentary about the inmates of New Folsom prison. However, this time the main theme isn’t the violence and the horrible events that can take place in such a place, but how prisoners spend their time in isolation. It focuses on the Arts-in-corrections project, in which prisoners get the possibility to express themselves through art.

A man lying on a sofa shares his sense of loneliness, unhappiness and opens up his family wounds, as if the camera was his psychiatrist. In this documentary film, Anton Corbijn: Inside out, there is also another side of the story: the outside of inspirations, passion for music and acquaintance with celebrities. Who is that man behind this chaotic portrait?

A lot of the film is taken from a first-person point of view; shaky handheld cameras are dominating the images of the prison. This gives you the feeling of being on the same level as the prisoners, which enhances the experience of watching the documentary. Simultaneously, you’re once in a while made aware of the fact that you’re an outsider by long, peaceful shots of the exterior of the prison. The birds fly freely in and out the prison walls. Only in their dreams the inmates can fly as free as birds and the audience This is quite special in this slow-paced documentary, partly because we hear all the prisoners’ stories through the music and poetry they produce; the prisoners are given a “new identity” in the merely dehumanizing environment of a prison. At Night I Fly could, by this, be even more telling than most other stories we hear about incarceration through fiction film and documentary. It doesn’t ask you to understand these men nor searches for what their crimes were. It wants to make you feel how they can keep on going within the suffocating grim walls of the jail.

There are several impressing scenes, some because of the intense discussions and interviews and others because of the emotion the music can evoke. For the latter, one scene stands out. A melody that an inmate plays on a flute is mixed with a story of another prisoner. This is again accompanied by a guitar melody, which together produces a wonderful music. In this manner the director, who is also a composer, brilliantly portrays several melodies that are personal to each inmate, but at the same time their spate pieces of music can be combined in one single symphony, since in the end they all have a similar story to tell. Thus, apart from that, At Night I Fly gives a new perspective on the prison and the prisoners; it is as well a documentary with beautiful music that is worth to be heard.

Zowi Vermeire (The Netherlands)

Dutch documentary filmmaker and producer Klaartje Quirijns tried to portray a personality of internationally acclaimed photographer and Dutch director Anton Corbijn. She followed him to his childhood home, work spaces, galeries, film sets, for almost four years. As a result she got a chaotic vision of a man lost in his inside and outside world.

The documentary doesn’t focus just on a one dimensional perpective of Corbijn`s personality, instead, the director jumps back and forth from his private to his public life. Even though this was a straight forward documentary, to me it seems that Quirijns didn’t exactly find a proper angle for the film.

She could have focused either on Corbijn as a humble human being, or she could have showed him just as a genius of photography, yet the title Inside out reflects Quirijns decision to put everything at once.

I also believe the whole movie feels a bit amateurish. It lacks some information about the speakers. Eventhough we easily recognize celebrities, we are left uninformed about Corbijn relatives. Maybe we just have to read between the lines and guess how the interviewees are related to the character.

Still I can’t argue that this documentary wasn’t intimate. As a viewer you can sense and feel Corbijn soul in it. His powerful works took the film to another level, yet interviews with famous musicians seemed a little bit pretentious and shallow. As if she wanted to attract more viewers by using big names alone. Corbijn is interesting enough without those figures, but as we could see in the movie, the whole stardom comes at a price. This genius artist still feels lonely with his thoughts as well as in his life.

If we talk about strongest side of this documentary, it’s Anton Corbijn himself, his works and his philosophy of life. This film shows him as a silent and lonely man, whose photography speaks louder than words. Anton Corbijn, celebrity photographer is an icon himself: He´s a medium, who creates both for the soul and for the body.

Donata Juskelyte (Lithuania)

nisimazine kaunas // 43

Short Films

Gospels

Who lasts longer

by by Erik Bunger, Germany

by Gregorio Muro , Basque Country

The human mind creates interpretations, wide range opinions for every view that the eyes capture. It searches for comparisons or similar memories. So all the time art works were evaluated by the impression they leave. It doesn’t matter whether the story is interesting or has already been seen a hundred times; everything is based on a first impression. Even though, man understands what he feels it becomes too difficult to explain it. And here everything becomes very complicated.

The 6th Kaunas international Film Festival didn’t have many animated films, but the ones that were shown distinguished themselves from productions usually offered to audiences. Such is the case of Who lasts longer.

Faith, surprise, admiration, bliss, respect - all these words are so banal, that no longer wish to be heard or to be used, though just with them it’s possible to express yourself in a understandable way. And that is the main concept of Swedish artist Erik Brunger short film Gospels, which already requires interpretation with its title.

It seems they are all talking about the same thing. Something. Human.

People. God. Maybe it does not matter what it is, because it’s important how they are saying it. And you begin to understand that, just when the film is coming to the end after a couple minutes of the search for sense. The director himself just does what he is best known for - he takes already created video materials, mix them and gives quite a different context and meaning. What normally appears as a dialogue in Erik Bunger films becomes a gospel.

Many famous people of the Cinema world are trying to convince you of something. The same words, the same emotions can possibly seem incredibly pointless, but what is behind them perhaps has a meaning of the gospel. A man talks about man in the language of such words that sometimes can’t be heard in any religious worship. Could be a more beautiful and compelling ode to the human being, its personality, creativity, actions, to its divinity?

In the film people radiate the same energy which they get from the person about whom they talk. Then it supplements our own spiritual energy, we start to express it ourselves and that is how the environment around us slowly starts to change into a brighter side. This is the effect of Erik Bunger film and this is how it becomes a true gospel.

Written and directed by Gregorio Muro, this short film manages to tell a touching story in only 12 minutes. Everything starts as an innocent children game – two boys, hands joined, standing on the train track, while in the background others are singing “who lasts longer”. Due to an accident, one of the boys, Ander, was unable to move away in time from the incoming train and is left brain damaged for the rest of his life. Slowly, his family life turns into a game – who will last longer?

This short film has an heavy impact on viewers. Not only does it bring tears to their eyes, but also makes them question their looks on people with disabilities. While surely cruel and more orientated at adult audiences, this animated short could be shown to children under controlled circumstances as well. It would do much more good than various “crap” (if you’ll pardon my language) currently available to kids both in TV and cinema screens.

In Who lasts longer painted scenes are accompanied by an atmospheric soundtrack – a combination that unties a knot in one’s heart. While the story told is pessimistic in nearly every aspect, this intentional negativity works: viewers walk out of the room with appreciation for life and promises to be better to others. Who lasts longer achieves its purpose and leaves the audience with a choice on how to live their lives after seeing what was shown.

Saulius Kovalskas (Lithuania)

Ugnė Česnavičiūtė (Lithuania)

nisimazine kaunas // 45

Close friends

by Jose Mari Goenaga, Spain Sometimes the misinterpretation of a single word or a sentence leads to great sorrow. In Jose Mari Goenaga’s short film Close Friend two men meet briefly while travelling. They hit it off, promise to be in touch, then depart. When one of them, Ekaitz, returns from his travels to his home in Madrid, he learns that the other one, Roman, is determined to really honor their promise. Ekaitz is able to cope with the long and constant phone calls but when Roman pays a visit to Madrid it gets obvious that their feelings are not as mutual as Roman hoped for.

Goenaga and the screenwriter Aitor Arregi tell a story many undoubtedly find easy to relate to.

The concept of friendship varies from people to people especially when they come from different cultures. It is the case here since Roman comes from Colombia and doesn’t understand why Ekaitz keeps avoiding him.

Perhaps Close Friend could be also seen as a metaphor for two nations trying to find a balance in their uneasy relationship but that’s probably taking it too far. The film is a solidly made bittersweet comedy and that’s enough.

Sami Pöyry (Finland)

nisimazine kaunas // 46

Movement of an impossible time

by Flatform, Italy

This is an experimental short film from the Centre Pompidou programme ‘Hors Pistes Kaunas’ created by a group of artists based in Berlin and Milan. The film transfers the spectator into the symphony of Ravel Quartet in F major, combining performances of the rain, snow, wind and fog that are dedicated to the only listener – an abandoned rural house.

Can you imagine? Such an imbalance! The most melodious music is cheering for the abandoned old house. It’s like the film would hold the concept of Beauty and the Beast. This fairy tale reminding video is coloured with the emotional dance of these meteorological elements. At first they appear separately and later are shown as a collectively performance with various expressions of raining, snowing, blowing and smoking.

In fact, this flux of sounds and the images creates this mixture dimension of time that reveals itself as beauty and “poverty” altogether. Individual elements of music gather the unified breathing, in and out , ofthe lonely building. It’s like enabling the house to feel these four dimensional acts of nature to inspire it to take a dusted breath for future existence.

Flatform was founded in 2006. The collective works on video and time-based installations as well as mobile installations. The works of the group has been featured in several film festivals, exhibitions at museums and institutions all over the world.

Movements of an Impossible Time tries to touch the abstract understanding of time, to give it an appearance, to describe it by using the sounds of nature´s expressions that basically don’t live together at the same time and at all.

VaidėLegotaitė (Lithuania)

Paradise Road

by Tomas Smulkis, Lithuania

A young Lithuanian filmmaker, Tomas Smulkis, was obsessed with Roy Andersson, the Swedish master of cinematic illusion and Nordic absurdism. We never learn exactly what Smulkis saw (and undoubtedly still sees) in Andersson. Maybe it’s the fact that for a young cinephile the world of the film industry may turn out to be a disappointment. When your dreams are fueled by the work of the great directors of the past and you end up dragging cables on a commercial shoot, it is natural to feel the urge to do something more meaningful.

I don’t know how Smulkis ended up deciding he had to meet and work with Roy Andersson but it’s clear it had nothing to do with a career but more with dreams.

Andersson at the time was working on his latest film You, The Living so Smulkis travelled to Stockholm and stated his business. What l followed is documented in the short film Paradise Road that’s maybe a bit too thin in content but finds amusing correlations between Andersson’s visions and Smulkis’ notions of everyday Swedish reality.

Sami Pöyry (Finland)

in focus

The truthfulness Animation Clay, paintings, computer-animation, stop-motion, photographs, 3D images made out of cardboard, short film clips, drawings: animation is presented to us in many forms.

Animation doesn’t pay a big part in Kaunas International Film Festival, but what is shown is worth seeing and evokes questions on the medium of animation itself. In total there were three interesting animation films I could distinguish, and except for one, they seem to use several different materials or techniques to compose their animation. The films are Tomatl: Chronicle of the End of the World (Luis Briceño, 2010), Who Lasts Longer (Gregorio Muro, 2011) and CrulicThe Path to Beyond (Anca Damian, 2011). All of them are in their own way able to represent reality in a different manner.

It might be that in some cases animation is an even more suitable medium to represent an image that is more truthful to reality than the recorded feature fiction film or documentary we’re used to.

Tomatl: Chronicle of the End of the World provides us with an interesting, though doubtful history of the tomato and its relation to the Aztec culture and calendar: a popular topic considering the 21st of December is quickly coming up. The film uses short video clips and stop-motion with photos. It employs an entertaining way of telling a history that is rather based on humorous speculation than facts. Nevertheless, in this documentary-like film it’s immediately clear to the audience that this story is probably not true. Animation normally tends to evoke that reaction; since the image is made up the audience will not expect the story to be true. If it is true the audience will probably look more critically. Therefore, an animation is less likely to deceive. It could even be argued that animation could have the potential to be more truthful and closer to reality than for instance a real shot mockumentary, which is based on complete deception.

Crulic – The Path to Beyond is staying closer to reality than Tomatl: Chronicle of the End of the World since it’s a story based on true events. However, in its images it derives further from the empiric reality and chooses to represent

the reality of the mind. One sees the images that play in the mind of Crulic and his emotions are visualised by the way the space is drawn around him. It is as if you look through his eyes. This could be argued to represent his reality and story more truthful than it would be when the empiric reality was shown plainly. Such a representation will let us know the facts, however, it is doubtful whether it would succeed in letting the audience feel the emotions and struggles Cruilc had to go through. Crulic – The Path to Beyond could be compared to the famous animation film Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi, 2007). In this film a fictional story of one girl represents an historical event, but doesn’t that film could be more truthful to reality and as well more telling than any documentary could do?

Lastly, a totally fictional animation is Who Lasts Longer, a tragic story about a boy that loses his mental sanity in a train accident. This animation stays in its drawings close to what an experience of reality could show. However, the transformation of the mother that has to endure more and more misery would be hard to represent in another form other than animation. The drawn image of her just becomes sadder and sadder as well as her features. Her face tells the whole story by the manner in which it is drawn. In a same style that was applied to Wall-E’s (Wall-E, Andrew Stanton, 2008), whose gestures and noises tell more than an explanation could ever do.

Thus, animation is an ultimate tool to show reality differently than we’re used to. It can show us emotions and illusions of the mind; it can take our feelings and drift away with it.

Animation has the power to present to us what goes on in the heart and the mind of the story.

Zowi Vermeire (the Netherlands) nisimazine kaunas // 49

Fernando

Zowi

Ugne C.

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Gulf stream under the iceberg - Yevgeny Pashkevich

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Keyhole - Guy Maddin

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Private universe - Helena Trestíková Donoma - Djinn Carrénard

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Spain - Anja Salomonowitz

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Alps - Yorgos Lathimos

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Fourth Dimension - H. K, A.F, J. K In the bedroom - Tomasz Wasilewski

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Tabu - Miguel Gomes

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Neighbouring Sounds - Kléber Mendoça Filho

How we played the Revolution - Dovilė Žičkytė

Sami

Ugne G.

Saulius

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Critics’ votes nisimazine kaunas // 50

location manager: Aistė Račaitytė (Lithuania) Aiste

4 x 2

Vaide

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Donata

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layout and photo edition: Lucía Ros Serra (Spain) original design: Maartje Adlers (Netherlands) Newsletter Designers: Ana Rodrigues (Portugal) Tiago Dias (Portugal)

credits

manager: Fernando Vasquez (Portugual)

Writers: Zowi Vermeire (Holland),Ugne Cesnaviciute (Lithuania), Vaidė Legotaitė (Lithuania),Sami Pöyry (Finland), Donata Juskelyte (Lithuania); Ugne Gudzinskaite (Lithuania),Saulius Kovalskas (Lithuania).

Very special thanks to Ilona Jurkonyte, Tomas Tengmark, Maartje Alders and everyone who directly and indirectly helped in the creation of the Kaunas International Film Festival edition.

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