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Famous actor ANDRÉ WILMS in Vilnius.

FILM FESTIVAL "CINEMA AGAINST LIE"
Presented by SPUTNIK OY (A.Kaurismaki film company), MA NO FILMS

Cinema. Lie. Cinema and lie. Lie in the cinema. Cinema against lie.

Combinations of words give inspirations to new meanings and all kinds of possible variations. It is each person’s right in self-perception of meaning, which gives intention to act and behave.

At least we think so. On the other hand there are countries where interpretation is limited. And there are states, territories, which beyond lies of the interpretation of freedom, not to mention the freedom itself, where is great chance to be punished in grams from 9 and more.

Film Festival “CINEMA AGAINST LIES” creators offer the opportunity to each viewer/reader to read/see OUR proposed compound. This compound can be split and stacked with every person’s desire and ability. We invite you to see “CINEMA” and do not propose to think about the "LIES". Because the freedom to think is a private and a very personal thing. The opportunity to understand the lies are very close to us; it is in private life in the press, on the battlefields, in political and legal rooms. "LIE" is global. Like “CINEMA”. Cinema is watched, and we recognise or want to recognise lies. Lie in art and in cinema can be dreadful to us as portions of lead distribution. Because lie can become treason in the darkness of cinema hall just like silence in the cell.

"CINEMA AGAINST LIES." We invite you to see the film, which might be targeted primarily to ourselves. And the lie can be temporarily forgotten until he reminded us about yourself. Inevitably.

July 31, 2009
Bernardinai.lt

CINEMA AGAINST LIES" AND AKI KAURISMAKI: A SENSITIVE RELATIONSHIP TO WHAT IS HAPPENING

From August 1 to August 7, the cinema "Forum Cinemas" festival will be hosting "Cinema Against Lies" film festival, which is expecting the arrival of Aki Kaurismaki, the eminent Finnish film director. The very fact of such festival in Vilnius is so startling, it feels like a must to figure out from what source the festival concept emerged, and who are its creators and promoters. Yet for me personally, the idea of this festival is also important for other reasons, giving me a glimpse of the past – one from nearly two decades ago. Back then, me and Giedrius Zubavičius, now the organizer of "Cinema Against Lies", were hanging around in Moscow, tired out by apparently worthless films at Moscow Film Festival, and then just went to an ordinary Moscow cinema to watch a film by a Finnish director that we both didn’t much know about. The first shots of the film, and – their gray, sometimes even numbing melancholy. It seems as if gray, slow, and often, static images should chase the viewer out of the cinema hall, but they strike you by their brilliant, inexplicable magic of melancholy. So, almost two decades after that, Giedrius Zubavičius met the author of these melancholic visualizations in person. And so was born the festival "Cinema Against Lies".

Nerijus Milerius. It is said that many of the things and phenomena are determined by our first impression, first feeling of them. What was your first impression when you met Aki Kaurismaki?

Giedrius Zubavičius. I saw a person who was completely identical to what he was doing. This was very surprising, because in Aki Kaurismaki’s case, his personality and his works are simply interconnected. After two days of communication, I told myself poetically that this man is like a tree, something very archaic, very simple. He shows no reaction to the buzz, and doesn’t respond to people passing by. All the time, his eyes are focused on something, and turned towards himself, and he has that sad face, which from time to time beams with a charming smile.

Many of the characters in the film look that way – with their hardened glance, and wooden motions. The characters in his films are often melancholics, as if thrown out of the rhythm of active life. But it is paradoxical that Kaurismaki has arrived in Lithuania to protect the people whom Lithuania regards with suspicion. It is a great mystery to me – if Kaurismaki’s films are perfectly in line with his own personality, how can this kind of melancholy bring about an active civil position?

Civil position is something that was always characteristic of Aki Kaurismaki. In reviewing his creative biography, I saw a lot of films produced, many scripts written, and heaps of captured pieces. I’ve been thinking, too, of how this kind of sad, painful, melancholic, slow person can carry out such a lot of voluntary creative action. This is yet another paradox. Civil position, as I think of it, is a sensitive person’s relationship to what is happening around. Not necessarily, but it may be a political position. Civil activity, not necessarily coincident with political activity, was very characteristic of the artists and intellectuals in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s.

Civil or, strictly speaking, political cinema is indeed often seen as a kind of history. In the cinema production nowadays, especially if you have thought of its post-modern examples, the attitude of playfulness and game setting is more obviously seen, and usually, it is completely socially and politically non-binding. Then a natural question arises: how does contemporary cinema, dominated by playfulness forms, make socially or politically motivated cinema possible?

Nowadays, this kind of cinema is indeed rare. If we talk in examples, then, say, Italy does have a few bright representatives of political engagement in cinema. Perhaps the most famous is Nanni Moretti. But as for me, Aki Kaurismaki’s example is more sublime, because it relies on irrational rather than pragmatical principle. Kaurismaki does not defend neither the left, nor any other political position.

What is that irrational principle?

It’s based on instinct, the human instinct to react to something that disturbs or harasses one. I think that Kaurismaki uses his political activities to defend his own melancholy, let’s put it this way.

Well, but then many would say that melancholy is absolutely uncivil.

Here we have yet another paradox. He’s an author of paradoxes, a man of paradoxes.

Despite the fact that he is melancholic, still he expresses his position on the war in Iraq or other such actions actively enough. But why is this active civil position still not reflected in his films? You have mentioned that Aki Kaurismaki is surprisingly adequate to his films.

Now, that is an expression of Aki Kaurismaki’s profoundness. It would be wonderful to ask him many of these questions, as I can only rely on my own intuition and insight, which will not be so deep. But, in my opinion, he has a very intimate feeling of the world, which has no place for political mottos or slogans. Because in truth, Aki Kaurismaki does not defend society – he defends himself. That is what I think.

We’ve been saying that civil resistance action, which stems from the melancholy, is an especially mysterious thing, while it was in quite a mysterious way that Aki Kaurismaki first appeared in Lithuania.

The first time Aki Kaurismaki visited Lithuania was twenty-seven years ago, when he stayed here with the Finnish cinema delegation. A few weeks before now, he came here for the second time, this time, in secret. The aim of his visit is a public campaign in support of a strange, complex case which is now considered in Lithuania. One Chechen family has been accused of criminal offenses. Aki Kaurismaki interacted with those defendants face to face in the jail for seven hours. I do not think he had read the numerous volumes of the investigative materials, I think he just listened attentively to the information, found the motivation, and arrived here. Apparently, someone in Finland had told him about it, and the story affected him. Upon his visit here, he was offered an idea to organize a film festival. The title for the festival appeared soon – "Cinema Against Lies". We did not want it to be a festival in support of some sort of political position. It was already my own suggestion – to organize a festival on the basis of what the festival participants do in life – on movie-making. And the interesting thing is that for Aki Kaursimaki’s retrospective of films, the director proper supported the "Cinema Against Lies" concept, and offered us a couple of comedies. And this not really such a serious thing in the light of a political case.

Comedy genre is most often associated, as I said, with a sort of non-binding game. But in this case, comedy represents cinema that is fighting against lies. How is that possible?

This is yet another paradox, now, the nth paradox!

In addition to Aki Kaurismaki, the festival program includes some other authors. Are they the those that he proposed you, or did you have other selection criteria?

Aki Kaurismaki proposed us to include into the festival program a film by his friend, who strongly supported him when the director did not receive a visa to enter America to attend the New York Film Festival. It was Abbas Kiarostami’s film. Several other films, especially documentaries, make a natural part of the program for "Cinema against Lies". Some of the other films were selected spontaneously. I personally thought that Theos Angelopolous’ film "Eternity and A Day" also matches the concept of the festival. Aku Louhimies’ film "Frozen Land", that some may have already seen in Lithuania, is also included in the festival. The whole matrix of "Frozen Land" is based on the category of lies. All in all, the program was born quite quickly.

However, it is unlikely that after our conversation, given all those explanations, we will have less puzzles about the festival. I feel I have more of them than before.
But puzzles are amazing! They help us live fully and intensely. I hope that our viewers will build their own relationships with the written words, spoken words and the movies they will see.

Nerijus Milerius

Aki Kaurismaki (Finland)