BALTIC CINEMA REVIEW

Thursday October 13th, 2016

The Baltic Cinema Review will be the second part of the Camerimage programme for the second time. After last year’s edition, during which we presented eight films, this year we have invited other countries who cooperate with us to take part in the overview. It is our pleasure to present you with the achievements of eleven countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Belarus, Norway, and Iceland.

We have chosen the films based on critics’ and film journalists’ votes for the film that will represent their country. By giving critics and film journalists a chance to vote, we wanted to provide you with a different point of view, and thanks to that we have managed to gather an interesting and genuine composition for this Camerimage section that represents what Baltic critics think are the most attractive recent works in their country’s cinematography.

This is the line-up for the Baltic Cinema Review 2016:

Bridgend

Sara and her dad Dave move to a small village that is haunted by the suicides of its young inhabitants. Sara falls dangerously in love with one of the teenagers, Jamie, while Dave, as the town’s new police officer, tries to stop the mysterious chain of suicides. The film focuses on the relationships between the vulnerable teenagers and their parents, who are left in the dark as the inexplicable suicides gradually take on the character of a punishing ritual.

Polish title: Tajemnice Bridgend

Director: Jeppe Rønde

Cinematographer: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck

Polish distributor: M2Films

Denmark, USA, UK, 2015

Exiled

It is the final year of WWI. The exhausted German military surgeon Ulrich is sent to inspect a remote convalescent home for shell-shocked patients. The strange world he encounters, where reality appears more like fiction, challenges for his cold, rational mind. His fruitless efforts to remodel the place and an unexpected attachment to a mysterious savage boy from the surrounding woods lead Ulrich to discover his one true self. Very soon this unlikely sanctuary will have to make its last stand against the approaching madness of the war.

Original title: Pelnu sanatoriju
Director: Davis Simanis Jr.

Cinematographer: Andrejs Rudzāts

Latvia, 2016

Fencer, The

Endel Neils, an agent working for Stalin’s secret police, escapes from Leningrad to a godforsaken Estonian village. He becomes a teacher in a local school and starts a fencing club. Neils turns out to be gifted and understanding teacher who cares for his pupils. Among his students there are many orphans who lost their parents due to Soviet deportations. Through the fencing the students can express themselves and escape from reality. Their skills grow so fast that they start to consider entering the Leningrad fencing tournament. Neils is faced with a choice: his own safety and his pupils’ disappointment or putting his life in danger by confronting his own past. The dilemma becomes serious when his colleague begins to investigate Neils’ past.

Original title: Miekkailija

Polish title: Szermierz

Director: Klaus Härö
Cinematographer: Tuomo Hutri

Polish distributor: Aurora Films

Germany, Estonia, Finland, 2015

Find, The

The senior fishery control inspector Trofim Rusanov – elderly, morose and unsociable – thinks that everyone around him is a criminal and is unforgiving of even the slightest deviation from the fishing rules and the norms of humanity. During his usual route across the lake, Trofim gets into a fight with the local fishermen and loses his boat. On his 20 km way home around the huge lake, he finds an abandoned child in a hunter’s lodge. His five-day quest through the forest to search for the guilty mother of the child turns out to be a quest for Trofim’s soul. This may be the first time in his life that he feels compassion.

Original title: Nakhodka

Director: Viktor Dement

Cinematographer: Andrei Naydenov

Russia, 2015

Gambler, The

Vincentas is the best employee at the emergency services station and has a single burning passion – gambling. Whenever he finds himself in a difficult situation, the medic is forced to grab onto something radical to pay off the money he is constantly losing. Vincentas is suddenly struck by the idea of creating an illegal game involving his profession. Initially the employees at the emergency services are the only ones attracted to this macabre engagement. Soon enough, however, the idea kicks off and starts spreading like wildfire. His medic colleagues become betting agents, while Vincentas takes control of the bank. As financial matters keep on improving, his co-worker Ieva starts objecting to the game, even though a passionate relationship has unfolded between her and Vincentas. Soon enough he is going to face making a fateful decision – the game or love.

Original title: Losejas

Polish title: Hazardzista

Director: Ignas Jonynas
Cinematographer: Janis Eglitis

Lithuania, 2013

Louder Than Bombs

Laura, an excellent war photographer, dies in an accident, leaving behind a husband and two adult sons. The men, devastated by her death and unable to deal with their grief, lose contact with each other. Three years after Laura’s death, an exhibition of her work brings them together again. Reminiscing about the past uncovers forgotten secrets, unspoken regrets, and a well of repressed feelings.

Polish title: Głośniej od bomb
Director: Joachim Trier
Cinematographer: Jakob Ihre

Polish distributor: Aurora Films

Denmark, France, Norway, 2015

Me and Kaminski

‘You’re famous. That’s what you wanted. Being famous means having someone like me.’ – Sebastian Zöllner in Germany shortly before the turn of the millennium. Sebastian Zöllner, art journalist and master of overconfidence, plans his big coup: a tell-all book about the legendary but almost forgotten painter Manuel Kaminski, a pupil of Matisse and friend of Picasso who once became famous as ‘the blind painter’. Zöllner, an unscrupulous and ambitious careerist, makes his way to the remote chalet high in the Alps where the ageing artist lives withdrawn and shielded by confidants. Sebastian intrudes into Kaminski’s home, life, and past, unceremoniously taking him on a breakneck and insane journey to his childhood sweetheart, who has long been considered dead. On the way, he tries to elicit Kaminski’s secrets with cunning and audacity. But Sebastian soon discovers that, whether blind or not, he is in no way the old man’s equal.

Original title: Ich und Kaminski

Director: Wolfgang Becker
Cinematographer: Jürgen Jürges

Belgium, Germany, 2015

Roukli

It is 2017. There is a war going on in Europe. Three people have moved to a farm by the sea, on the edge of the Roukli oak grove. Jan, a writer, his sister Eeva, a music teacher, and her husband Villu, a composer. Jan’s former spouse, Marina, arrives unexpectedly to be the fourth – and in some cases unwanted – inhabitant. The war is still far away, but when low-flying fighter jets and missiles roar over their heads one sunny day, anxieties rise and relations become tense. After more bombing and the destruction of the capital city, two refugees who claim to be from Roukli arrive on the farm. They say that their lives are endangered by their pursuers, who are led by a bandit named Peedu. Our protagonists have to accept the refugees onto the farm. Suddenly it turns out that one of them bears Christ’s stigmata, as well as a hole in his ribs. Something strange is afoot when Peedu’s horsemen arrive after the protagonists have made an attempt to drink their fear away, and the situation quickly deteriorates...

Original title: Roukli

Director: Veiko Õunpuu
Cinematography: Erik Põllumaa

Estonia, 2015

Vera's Sweet Farewell

Beautiful ageing Vera has spent her life waiting for the only man she ever loved, the captain of an airliner who was never brave enough to leave his family for her. Now she has no job, relatives, or friends, but many painful memories. Fearing her sudden death, Vera decides to organise her own funeral in advance and invites an agent from a funeral home to meet her. The director happens to be a handsome young man. A love that neither can admit flashes between them, but nevertheless the time Vera spends with this man turns out to be the sweetest in her life.

Original title: Vera's Sweet Farewell

Director: Alexandra Butor

Cinematographer: Andrey Voskresensky

Belarus, 2014

Virgin Mountain

Fúsi is a shy, sensitive 40-year-old still living with his mother and her partner. Each of his days looks like the last. Every morning he wakes up to a bowl of cereal and leaves for work, where he spends hours unloading luggage and listening to his friends making fun of his weight and his character. One day, on his mother’s advice, he reluctantly joins a dance class, where he meets a life-weary girl named Sjöfn, Soon she will turn his life upside down and change him beyond recognition.

Original title: Fúsi

Director: Dagur Kári

Cinematographer: Rasmus Videbæk

Polish distributor: Against Gravity Sp. z o. o.

Iceland, 2015

Yard, The

An unemployed writer takes a job as a transporter at the Yarden, a hub for new cars in the port of Malmö. He becomes a stranger, a five-digit number that is forced to manoeuvre between suspicious colleagues and the ever-watchful office management.

Original title: Yarden

Director: Måns Månsson

Cinematographer: Ita Zbroniec-Zajt

Germany, Sweden, 2016