Baltic Sea Docs Riga/ 3
I have mentioned so many times the old masters like Herz Frank, Ivars Seleckis, Mark Soosaar, Henrikas Sablevicius, Uldis Brauns and their younger students like Audrius Stonys, Arunas Matelis (who are no longer the young generation but masters who belong to the Baltic poetic tradition), but there are always directors, who sing with their own voice, in this case with many voices like Laila Pakalnina, who has made long and short documentaries, and feature films, conceptual and not conceptual, provoking in subject and style(s). Always surprising.
… and always a gift for a moderator at a pitching session, like me at the Baltic Sea Docs this year. I had no idea what Pakalnina wanted to say or how she wanted to present her project called ”Spoon”, and I was wonderfully amused as was the audience and the panel of decision makers, who were asked to get active. But first the catalogue text for the film:
”Men can drill very deep, down to where oil is. Large groups of qualified men equipped with machines can extract oil and make it travel far, to a place where other qualified men can transform oil into useful plastic. The plastic is then moved away to a factory, where more men can turn it into spoons, which will be even further transported to all sorts of eateries, and, likely, will be available free of charge. This meaningful life will last for one unceremonious meal.This film is going to be about a plastic spoon, society, and society’s progress. About the steps that must be taken so that people can end the spoon’s journey and throw it into the bin…”.
And it was at this point the panelists became actors in a documentary film pitched to them:
The last scene of the film, the throwing of plastic spoons into a bin was shot yesterday, sunday morning on the 11th floor of the Hotel Albert. Where the 20th edition of the Baltic Sea Docs 2016 took place. Take a look at the photo – From the left to the right: Arte’s Valérie Theobalt, MDR’s Heribert Schneiders, Estonian Television’s Marje Jurtshenko, IKON (The Netherlands) Margje de Koning and DR/TV’s Jan Daae.
The film is to be shot in black and white by Gints Berzins, who had been on the hotel location to decide, where the camera should be placed and whose few super aesthetic panoramic shots were shown on the screen while the discussion of the film took place.
Pakalnina was accompanied on stage by Lithuanian producer Dagne Vildiunaite, not present was the Estonian producer Kaspar Kallas. With Pakalnina being Latvian this is going to be a true Baltic coproduction supported by the film institutions, I guess, and maybe some of the spoon throwing decision makers from the photo. From my side thanks for the show and mind my words, there is no risk in supporting Laila Pakalnina. You will get quality, whether you like the style she chooses for storytelling or not.
Photos: Photo: Agnese Zeltina… thanks!
