When in Romuva: An interview with Kaunas International Film Festival Director Ilona Jurkonyte

This week I spent a couple of days visiting the Kaunas International Film Festival, held in a Forum Cinema multiplex at the heart of Lithuania's second city. Only in its fourth year, the event is already gaining steam and able to boast some interesting guests. This year's event is playing host to the venerated Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr - who is coming to talk about his work whilst the festival celebrates his career with a retrospective. I was curious to know how the relatively small town of Kaunas, in an unfashionable corner of Europe, was able to attract such a guest - not to mention put on such an interesting and diverse programme which this year includes international festival hits: such as Thai Palm D'Or winner 'Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives'.

I asked the Festival's Director and founder Ilona Jurkonyte about welcoming Béla Tarr to the festival, and she was unsurprisingly enthusiastic when quoting for me a national film critic, who said: "If someone were to ask what were the two most important moments in Lithuania this year it would be the basketball bronze in Turkey and the Béla Tarr visit in Kaunas." To punctuate the significance of this declaration Ilona says to me: "you should have seen what was happening here after the basketball!" But how exactly did they pull it off? Well, strong links with organisations in the Hungarian film industry (such as the Hungarian Institute in neighbouring Estonia) have helped, but the connection goes a little deeper: "We started our festival with a Hungarian movie in 2007, and now these institutions are happy with what we've done... this is why they've helped us get such a guest as Béla Tarr."



Ilona's considerable coup in attracting such a prestigious guest is made all the more extraordinary for happening in a former Soviet country with few remaining cinema screens and little local film industry. It hasn't been an easy task establishing the annual event and she explained how it was founded as part of an ongoing local battle to save the country's oldest cinema, Kaunas' own beautiful 1930s-built Romuva, from being turned into a casino. I interviewed her the evening she had won an important victory in securing the venue's long term future - and the next day was privileged to be able to undertake a tour of the building itself (along with Splendor co-host Jon Barrenechea, pictured with Ilona inside Romuva below). It seems it is hard to talk about the KIFF without talking also about Romuva.

"We started this festival, with friends, because of cinemas. Cinemas were being closed all over Lithuania. Different countries, at different times, had this wave of closing cinemas, but in Lithuania it happened after breakthrough." "Breakthrough" is what Lithuanians call the moment they declared Independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990 (becoming the first nation to do so). Until breakthrough Lithuania's cinemas had been protected by state ownership and a Russian belief in the importance of the art form as an ideological weapon. But since independence the cinemas were in decline and, according to Ilona, "nobody was taking any notice." It was almost a decade ago that Ilona and her friends "decided to take an active position in this... we started this festival to draw attention from people all over Lithuania to the oldest cinema – Romuva."



Festival directors can be tricky people to interview. I tried to pin down Tony Jones whilst visiting his festival in Cambridge last month, but the job requires so much diplomacy (and many years spent building up relationships with distributors) that they are often understandably reluctant to speak candidly on the record. Ilona is no different, and it is clear whilst talking with her that a few of the subjects of our conversation are not really for public consumption. But she is friendly, polite and passionate about the event which, this year, is three times the size of its 2009 incarnation. And she has every reason to be proud. Just a couple of years ago the situation was a lot bleaker than it is now.

Ilona explains: "There were no screens. There were no Lithuanian films on screens. Lithuanians could not see them at all because the multiplexes did not think they'd be popular. There were no film critics. We'd get, from time to time, these meaningless press releases about a Lithuanian film playing in another festival, but we wouldn't have a chance to see it here." Yet now the KIFF is closer than ever to rescuing a small independent cinema and is screening a Lithuanian feature, 'Eastern Drift' (pictured below), as well as a number of short documentaries and animations. They are also beginning to capture the attention of national press - which is no mean feat outside of the country's capital, Vilnius.



It isn't just press interest that Ilona is keen to encourage, however. She has also been targeting local government, which has been another uphill struggle - but one she appears to be winning: "The first year was hard because nobody knew what we were talking about. I had to go around the town and tell people about the need for audio visual literacy, and it was incredible because politicians knew nothing about cinema: to them it was just Hollywood blockbusters. We invited them, but they wouldn't come very often. But slowly, every year, we get more interest." It has also been difficult to gain the attention of the local community, but Ilona insists "Kaunas is not easy to start moving: but once it falls in love, it falls in love totally. We hope to be an apprectiated event because we really take pride in what we do, so we hope we infect more people!"

However, there is no danger that Ilona will compromise her vision for the sake of easy popularity: "We are not very careful about making our programme amusing and funny, and one year a journalist said “you show so many tough films, will you make your programme funnier next year?” but we've given up on catering for this! So now our slogan this year is “we don't show special effects, we create them” [poster below]. We know we have a pretty tough programme, but we say “take it or leave it”. If it's not for you, it's not for you. But more and more people are joining! Maybe people are a bit tired of this candy look and approach and some people are looking for something real... I also think many people have this demand, but they don't realise it yet!"



So what does the future hold for the KIFF? Ilona is realistic, saying that "a film festival in such a small country as Lithuania is very hard to have such big ambitions". Yet the ambitions she does have are not too modest. As well as saving, renovating and eventually reopening Romuva, Ilona has some noble socially spirited goals: "we would like to create an atmosphere of audio visual literacy in the town. We'd like to have representatives of every film, lots of good seminars and discussions." Ilona places a real emphasis on educating people about the role film can play: culturally and socially. In fact, last year's slogan was appropriately enough “sometimes you have to go into darkness to see the light.” It appears that Ilona and her hard working team are moving in the right direction. "Lithuanian national film history is not yet written" she says. I for one wouldn't rule Ilona Jurkonyte's involvement when that day finally comes.

The 4th Kaunas International Film Festival is continuing in Kaunas until the 10th of October, before moving to Vilnius from the 11th to the 17th. Béla Tarr is attending from the 8th until the 11th.

Where I've been this last week + Flick's Flicks October

I've not updated here in almost a week, probably the longest the site has gone without any "content" since it started back in January this year. So I wanted to post this as a stop gap to provide my excuses.

Basically, since my last post I've been busily writing programme copy for the upcoming CineCity Film Festival. Then I attended one of Europe's youngest and most obscure festivals: Lithuania's Kaunas International Film Festival. I returned to England from that yesterday and today was occupied with interviewing Oliver Stone in London (for 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps') before watching 'Made in Dagenham'. Then tonight I worked the bar at the Duke of York's - returning to my day job.

October's edition of Flick's Flicks is up too. I am still hosting the show whilst regular host, Felicity Ventom, is on maternity leave - and I look set to continue into until the new year, which means I'll be recording two more episodes. Here is the latest:



Check back soon for reviews of Palm D'Or winner 'Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives' and Brit movie 'Made in Dagenham', as well as a interviews with Oliver Stone and Ilona Jurkonytė: the director of the Kaunas International Film Festival.

Cambridge reviews, so far...

I've been lucky so far at the 30th Cambridge Film Festival, in that between working as a sub-editor for the daily paper here I have also been able to see a few films. I have been reviewing them over at Obsessed with Film, so I'll post the links here:

'The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec'
'Enter the Void'
'Police, Adjective'
'World's Greatest Dad'

Travelling to Venice + Day One (so far)

I have never been abroad before now. Well, with the exception of a school ski trip over a decade ago. Nor have I been on an aeroplane. So it is no wonder I am excited – even by the short monorail journey to Gatwick airport's Terminal N. As I tuck into some scrambled egg on toast at the terminal's branch of Weatherspoon's, I feel like this is somehow the perfect wave goodbye to England. If only it were goodbye. I finish my meal to find my flight is delayed by an hour. Welcome to air travel, I guess.

When it is finally time to board the plane, a BA flight to Venice and the film festival, I glimpse the unfashionable lounges which feel like a frozen piece of the 1980's. They are in stark contrast to the sterile, modern mall above – where I was able to purchase a copy of Murakami's Norwegian Wood, in anticipation of the adaptation screening the next day. The deeper I go into the airport, the less “special” I feel. On the train from Brighton I was thinking “these people don't know I'm going to Venice.” When I first entered the airport, I though “sure, these people are going somewhere, but it won't be as good as Venice.” But now, waiting to board the plane, I am all to aware that everyone is going to Venice. Irrationally, I start to resent everyone around me.

More so when they act as if it's entirely normal to hurtle 33,000 feet into the air in a metal cylinder. I'm looking out my window at the right wing, praying it doesn't explode, and then within minutes I am above the English channel, with the coasts of England and France within view. Yet the man in the seat in front hasn't looked up from The Spectator since we boarded the plane.

From the air, all Northern Europe looks identical: patchwork configurations of lush, green agricultural land, broken up by roads and the occasional river system. But it's spectacular. The pilot informs us of our course, saying we are flying over Luxembourg, heading towards Frankfurt, where we will make a right and head to Venice, passing over Stuttgart and Innsbruck and Verona. The the while, I am glued to the window and getting none of my reading done. Over Frankfurt, I can see what looks like a nuclear power station and a long, wide and winding river stretching off southwards as far as the eye can see, whilst over Stuttgart, the mighty football stadium is rendered laughably small, as are the autobahns. I feel like I bought tickets to a show called “Google Earth – LIVE!” and it's the best show I've ever seen.

Living in the city, you can come to imagine that we (humans) have destroyed the better part of our environment – paving it with concrete. When you travel by air you are reassuringly shown that this isn't the case. Which is not to say the landscapes were anything “natural” - obviously, the patches of farmland owe everything to the interference of man – but it is a comfort to know an aerial view of Europe is not yet grey. In fact, as things are, it is always a welcome sight to glimpse a city below.

Of course, capitalism does its best to ruin things – even this high above the clouds. British Airway's “High Life Shop” trolley comes around, offering the chance of duty free shopping whilst you fly (as if that time marooned at the airport, surrounded by digital cameras, perfume and cigarettes, wasn't enough). Quite why anyone would fancy buying a bottle of Channel No.5 or Grouse Whiskey from a cart on the plane, is anyone's guess. Sure, the alps are coming into view below, the majestic peaks of the mountains, breaching the clouds in a way I can only describe as painfully beautiful, but sure. Go shopping.

The alps are genuinely magnificent. Especially when we pass over a green, forested valley, with a lake at its center and now atop its peaks. For a time over the mountains, nothing is visible but the thickest clouds. But even this has its own beauty to it.

Landing in Venice, I was surprised to find how comforted I was by familiarity. Upon leaving the airport, I was greeted by a huge banner with the Barcelona football team – comprised of South Americans, Africans and Europeans - on it (advertising a Turkish airline in Italian – if ever there was a better example of internationalism: I haven't seen it). I saw a BMW dealership, a bus advertising Camp Rock 2 and, later in my hotel room, saw Maroon 5 on Italian MTV.

The overall theme seemed to be “we're all the same”. Of course, I'd always known that in a glib, liberal, humanist sort of way – but I was struck by how true it really is. Seeing everywhere from Kent to Venice, more or less looking the same from the air, was both disappointing and reassuring. As was seeing that Italian roadsides are no more glamorous than British ones and that Italian infants are no less annoying on public transport then our own. It was all curiously life affirming. I have a theory that if everyone was sent into space for ten minutes to look at, and contemplate, the earth: it would end all conflict. Maybe that's bullshit, but the farther you zoom out, surely the more trivial disputes come to seem and differences come to seem smaller too.

Anyway, enough sanctimonious preaching. After landing in Venice I was struck by the fact that in every direction and round every corner is something beautiful. Ridiculously beautiful. Take the most amazing building you've seen in London and surround it with a thousand more just as nice or nicer: this is Venice. I took a lot of photos at first (which annoyingly this notebook I am borrowing won't let me upload) but I had to stop. I realised, if I take pictures of every thing of beauty I encounter: I won't have time to do anything else.

So, first evening in Venice, thanks to the delay of the flight I missed the early showing of the new Donnie Yen movie, which I said I might try to see (though the next day I saw the man himself). Instead I caught up with Jon (Splendor Cinema) and drank strange and potent Lithuanian liquors with a array of beautiful people from all over Europe (I was the only Brit and the only person with only one language, among over 100 people). I took several Vaparetto rides around the city and saw the sunset over the domed skyline. Wonderful already.

I will now go downstairs and have my first Italian breakfast at my hotel. Which is run by an Indian bloke called Roy, who is fluent in Indian, Italian, English, German, Spanish and French, no less....

... that was this morning's entry, but I couldn't post it (no internet for me unless I'm in the press area at the Lidocasino). Since then I have seen the amazing 'Black Swan' - the new film by Darren Aronofsky's new film. It blew me away totally. I wrote a quick-fire first impression on my blackberry and sent it to my editor at Obsessed with Film and he put it up. It then got quoted by another site pretty soon afterwards! Anyway, full review to follow. I then went to the press conference with the director and stars Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel, which I will also write up later for OWF.

After that: the perfect antidote for 'Black Swan'. A really naff Chinese comedy called 'Showtime'. It was a light-hearted film with one eye on the 'Step Up'/'Street Dance' audience, an obvious influence in the direction and choreography. Very weird, involving time travel and super powers of some kind. I really didn't understand it, I guess. But most people seemed to share that feeling, with a packed auditorium being way under half full by the film's end, with walk outs visible throughout. I hope director, Stanley Kwan, wasn't there!

Now I'm off to see if I can score some 'Machete' tickets for midnight's world premiere. Wish me luck!

67th Venice International Film Festival

Tomorrow I set off for Venice to attend this year's Film Festival which runs from September 1st to 11th. On behalf of Obsessed With Film and the Picturehouse Blog, I am going to be reporting from the festival, writing reviews and hopefully interviewing people too. My Splendor Cinema podcast co-host, Jon Barrenechea, is also there on separate business, so we should also be recording a couple of new episodes whilst there. As a big Kurosawa fan, I can't wait to attend (for the first time) the festival which is so often credited with bringing him - and Japanese cinema in general - to wider Western attention, after they famously awarded 'Rashomon' the prestigious Golden Lion award in 1951. Last year's recipient was Sam Maoz for the superior Israeli war film 'Lebanon'.

Among the big films competing for this year's Golden Lion are Sophia Coppola's 'Somewhere' (pictured above), Takeshi Mike's '13 Assassins' (which screens the day I leave - on the 9th!), Tom Tykwer's 'Drei' (which plays after I have left) and Darren Aronofsky's 'Black Swan'. Though, after the little-fancied Thai film 'Uncle Boonmee' was picked as the surprise winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes earlier in the year, it is hard to say who the Quentin Tarantino led jury will plumb for. Possibly something similarly oblique will be crowned the winner - such as the Japanese drama 'Norwegian Wood' (pictured below), adapted from the best selling novel by Haruki Murakami. This is one of the reasons why I am going to try to see every 'in competition' film I am able to. I'm probably going to see four to five films a day as I try to avoid missing THE film.



I will try to see a few 'out of competition' movies as well though. 'I'm Still Here', Casey Affleck's much-anticipated documentary/mocumentary about the transition from actor to rapper of Joaquin Phoenix. It isn't really known how serious this film is as of yet (is it a joke? Is Phoenix serious?) and, I have to admit, I've been sucked into the hype on this one. Ever since the 'Gladiator' stars's bizarre interview on Letterman I've been curious. Elsewhere, Casey's older brother, Ben, is debuting crime thriller, 'The Town', which he directs and stars in alongside Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall and Jon Hamm. Whilst, the late Dennis Hopper is being honoured with a screening of his little seen follow-up to 'Easy Rider', 1971's ill-fated 'The Last Movie'. It is on at midnight so provided I can still get a boat back to the city after the screening, I would very much like to see that one too.

For whatever reason, some of the 'out of competition' films are showing the evening I arrive, before the festival officially kicks off. So I may see the Andrew Lau ('Young and Dangerous') directed 'Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen', starring Donnie Yen, tomorrow. If I get settled in ok and can find the cinema! I will probably miss the retrospective on Italian comedy, the celebratory screenings of the work of John Woo (who is being honoured this year) and the short films - but I will try to fit in anything I can. So check back here, and on those other sites I mentioned, to get the latest from the 67th Venice International Film Festival.