Lituania Film Director Interview on Body, Models, Locarno

Akiplėša (Toxic) is the feature film debut from Lithuanian director Saulė Bliuvaitė, and it had its world premiere in the Locarno Film Festival’s international competition on Thursday.

The young creative also wrote the coming-of-age drama that is inspired by her own experiences. It centers on Maria, 13, who is left by her mother and forced to live with her grandmother in a bleak industrial town where she meets Kristina who wants to become a fashion model.

“In a bid to get closer to her, Maria enrolls in a mysterious modeling school, where the girls are preparing for the biggest casting event in the region,” reads a description of the film. “Her ambiguous relationship with Kristina and the intense, cult-like environment of the modeling school launch Maria on a quest to discover her own identity.”

The film is part of a strong presence for Lithuanian cinema at the 77th edition of the Swiss festival, which is screening an eclectic lineup and honoring big names from around the world, including New Zealand director Jane Campion.

Bliuvaitė talked to THR about her first feature film, its exploration of the human body, her own experiences with the world of modeling competitions, why she loves American and Greek movies, and what may be next for her.

I’m sorry to say that I don’t speak a single word of Lithuanian, but I am curious about the title of your film in Lithuanian and in English. Is the meaning the same?

Actually, this Lithuanian word is not translatable. Its meaning is different from “toxic.” It means an absolutely shameless person who could literally take your eyes out. When I was a kid, you would go around doing some crazy stuff in the yard, and some old lady would come out and call you “akiplėša.”

How did the idea for the film come together and what inspired you to write and direct this story?

One source was a film that I saw, a documentary from 2011 called Girl Model. The directors are David Redmon and Ashley Sabin. I just watched the film accidentally. It portrays how models are scouted in Russia, how scouts from Western Europe take the Trans-Siberian Railway to these godforsaken places to look for models, and they do these huge castings where hundreds, thousands of girls are participating. This film explores this system of taking girls from villages and bringing them to work in Japan or other countries. So, it was portrayed in this very sad manner

Somehow, I realized I saw myself in this film – very pale girls, very, very young. And I remember I started to connect these scenes, this vibe with my own experiences when I was 13. I really wanted to be a model. I think it was a thing at that time, 2008. It was really a thing, especially in the Baltic countries. People would go to find these very thin little girls, and there were numerous agencies and castings. We would be going there endlessly. I remember these long lines of girls who would be standing there and look like clones – same clothes and all.

I just thought, “wow, I need to do something about this.” The images that I got in my head remembering this all. So, I really wanted to portray this atmosphere. The documentary, from my perspective, seemed very low-fi, observational, very minimal. I thought, “Wow, this could be a great film” and I could bring this to the fiction film level with great cinematography and whatnot.

Some of the imagery and camera angles are really memorable…

I was very lucky to get to work with an amazing cinematographer. He is this Lithuanian filmmaker, Vytautas Katkus, who is making his first feature film as a director now. We shared a lot of ideas, and a lot of ideas in this film, he came up with. We just had this great tandem.

We didn’t just want to do this as your everyday film about teenagers where the camera is in the face and tries to capture their emotions as close as possible. I really wanted to create the atmosphere together with the environment in which the action is going on. That’s why we did a lot of wide shots in general.

I didn’t feel so strongly about breaking this pattern and getting out of the characters’ space and just being far away. But my cinematographer really helped me to just free myself from these conventions how this film should look like. So yeah, it was a very nice journey for me also to just be experimental.

How did you cast the movie? There are a lot of young faces in it…

It felt like a very long period of casting, and a very interesting one, because I really wanted to cast 13- or 14-year-olds. We saw a lot of girls of different ages, and I realized that it would be easier for me to cast 18-year-olds. But when you see 18-year-old bodies, you know in your mind that it’s just portrayed that they are 13. But when you see an actual 13-year-old, everything feels different.

I think that’s what’s wrong with our society. We’re just seeing a lot of films and TV series where grown-ups are portraying teenagers, and you get a very different idea of what a 13-year-old person is. And I really didn’t want to become a part of this because it kind of desensitizes the vulnerability of this age. I really wanted to get actresses, but we don’t have actresses of that age. So I did a lot of stages in the casting. For the first stage, we cast a lot of people. Then we chose some. Then we did workshops with them to see their capabilities. But I’m happy that I actually went through all of this and that we put a lot of effort into this. We got what we wanted.

Did you always want to make movies?

I think I was a filmmaker even in school. I just really loved to sit on my computer and edit videos with the Windows Movie Maker with these very terrible transitions. I would also really love to stage something, anything at school. I was always gathering people to create some kind of play. I think I had this since childhood.

But I actually grew up in this industrial area. It was very not artsy. There was no art community. I didn’t have parents who were connected to the art world. So I actually wasn’t thinking about becoming anything of that sort because I thought it was not for me. I was studying journalism, because I really wanted to write, but I just realized that I will never be asked about my opinion on anything in that profession. As a journalist, you have to be a mirror.

I really wanted to tell some stories. I saw that there was an admissions process to the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in film directing, and I just went there. I didn’t expect anything but they liked me. That was my first step.

Do you see yourself as having any key influences from the world of film or beyond?

I was always very fond of such directors as Harmony Korine and Sean Baker. I actually love American cinema. It was so funny. When I talked with our cinematographer [Vytautas Katkus], he asked me to send some references. He said they were all American films. I then realized, yeah, I love this vibe of American cinema. It’s very colorful, and kind of weird. I also like the Greek Weird Wave, and I think I used some elements from all of these influences for this film.

One of my influences is Greek movies by Yorgos Lanthimos and also the female director Athina Rachel Tsangari. She has this film Attenberg, also about two young women. They are in their 20s, and there is a lot of dancing. I was very inspired by these dances. It really works with this weirdness of being 13 years old, which I wanted to portray. This film is also a lot about the body, about not feeling good in your body and trying to fit in and feeling weird about yourself. These dances were the way that I wanted to express these thoughts and this atmosphere. I also love to dance.

How much did you think about the ending of your film? [The next answer contains spoilers about the ending.]

In the script, for a long time, there were just some elements – how and where the story ends. But I was really thinking a lot during shooting and during editing about what the last scene of the film would be. I really didn’t want it to feel hopeless at the end. I wanted to give some hope, but not have this morally righteous or uplifting scene. I wanted this to feel true, not very exaggerated or fake.

So, I added this scene at the end. I decided to shoot the scene where [the kids] play basketball and begin talking among themselves and get into [an argument]. I added this very, very late because I thought it would be the best to give a sense of life. I’m happy that I shot this scene. I just wanted the audience to feel that they are just kids, so after what happens, they still have a lot of adventures in front of them. Nothing is definite.

Any idea what you want to do for your next feature project?

I have something in mind. It’s very vague. But I think I need to go full circle with this film because I just made it. And now I need to go to the festival and reflect a little bit. And then I think I need some rest. I don’t want to do this too fast.

I heard that there is a curse with the second film. [she laughs] Some Lithuanian director has told me about the second film, especially if you get some success with the first one. It’s very hard. You also have to start fresh to do something absolutely new for yourself and not try to do the same thing again.

Do you think you may feel the pressure of making a second movie that does well again by getting into an important film festival or so?

I was a very good student in school. But in this industry of cinema it’s so subjective, there are no objective calculations to validate a piece of art. Sometimes, I struggle with that and cannot overcome this feeling of “How can I be the best?” There is no such thing in art. You are the best when you are the most free.