Connecting Different Viewpoints. An interview with the artist and curator Deimantas Narkevičius

This year, the focus of the 68th International Oberhausen Short Film Festival is on Lithuania. The auteur programme, curated by the artist Deimantas Narkevičius and prepared together with the Lithuanian Short Film Agency Lithuanian Shorts, showcases works by young Lithuanian artists. The programme ‘Country Focus Lithuania: Whispering Loudly’ consists of three parts, and presents fiction, animation and experimental works. Deimantas Narkevičius was interviewed by the film curator Mantė Valiūnaitė.

Mantė Valiūnaitė: I would like to start by asking, how did the opportunity come up to showcase short films by Lithuanian filmmakers at the International Oberhausen Short Film Festival?

Deimantas Narkevičius: The Oberhausen Short Film Festival started to feature national showcases and this would seem rather contrary to their longstanding tradition. The first was dedicated to Portugal, and the second to Lithuania. This programme was to be screened in May 2021; however, Germany was under strict lockdown and cinemas were closed, so, together with the partner of the programme, the Lithuanian Short Films Agency, we came to an agreement to ask Oberhausen to postpone the programme I had curated until the following year. We wanted the films to be shown in cinemas, and to provide filmmakers with the opportunity to introduce their works in person. We preferred the showcase to be an event. Hilke Doering, the programmer of the international competition of the festival, asked me if I could curate a three-part auteur programme, which would cover the last decade of Lithuanian cinema. I replied that I would need to think about it, since the task is rather complicated: a variety of very different films are made in Lithuania, and the scene has recently experienced a generous influx of new creators. Moreover, substantial differences in artistic values exist between video artists and directors with a background in cinema. I don’t see any harm in that, but finding mutuality and an appropriate order of appearance was a challenging task.

MV: Was this task delegated by the organisers of the festival?

DN: No, it was my personal decision, since there is a wide-ranging cinema scene in Lithuania. Daunted by the task, I started looking for advice on where to find one piece of work or another, where to watch them, and what works should I consider. I am very glad that the Lithuanian Short Film Agency and its head Rimantė Daugėlaitė agreed to help me: they looked after the film and the delivery of materials, and contacted the authors. Coordinating everything on my own would have been a huge challenge, but the Lithuanian Short Film Agency has worked with Oberhausen in the past. The agency responded positively to my suggestion, and the result is very pleasing: an institutionally accomplished yet personally curated auteur programme.

MV: What criteria did you have in mind before starting to watch the films?

DN: As the practice of Oberhausen shows, it is preferable for one person to curate the programme. The programmers and curators of the festival select films very responsibly, independently, creatively, and not for promotional purposes. They have a longstanding tradition of inviting artists and directors to create programmes, which turn into auteur sessions, authentic statements assembled from autonomous artworks. This is precisely how I approached the task: it is not a promotional programme compiled on the basis of criteria such as film awards, festival appearances and audience numbers. These are the films I liked the most.

MV: I would love to learn about the selection principles: did you look for films to complement the films you favoured, or did you group your favourites according to topics?

DN: To start with, I wanted to include experimental films, a genre that is slowly starting to take the place of creative documentary. Hence, video artists who construct their works freely and on multiple layers had to be included in the programme. Of course, a generation of graduates from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre who are now in their thirties have enriched the local genre of fiction film; they were also given a large share of screen time in this programme. Neither could I have neglected experimental animation. Since my childhood I have always been very influenced by Lithuanian animation. I have visited Oberhausen many times to present my own work, and observed how animation makes the festival only more compelling; animation is included in both the competition and auteur programmes. These were my main choices genre-wise. The subject of the programme was determined by a question that is very important to me: a question of the cultural self, which, instead of deriving from history, is revealed through the current social structure, a self that is no longer ethnic, but instead is determined by social and technological factors, culture or subcultures that have permeated states of a multitude of different media. In other words, it is when the vision of our world is experienced through the screen rather than reality itself, through television, the Internet, or other distribution channels. At first I found it challenging to see how these realities blend, either in the work of video artists or fiction films by cinema directors, but it has become a common trait that recurs in all parts of the programme. I found it interesting to watch short films by graduates from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, as a digital expression of a television-related format appears in their work, but it unravels rather creatively. I like it very much: to some degree, it is a hybrid of narrative cinema and television experience.

MV: It would be interesting to hear your opinion on differences between the works presented by graduates of Vilnius Academy of Art and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.

DN: I wanted to present a spectrum of artistic expressions, one might even say traditions, and so display how the short film genre progresses. I wanted to approach this methodically, and thus show what is being taught in one school or another. Of course, the films had to be in tune with each other, and I had to give up several works that I wanted to include for certain qualities. However, I think I succeeded in putting together different traditions, or rather different viewpoints, that reveal how the films come about: fiction, animation or experimental. And how the boundaries of the genres begin to vanish.

MV: I find your insight on documentary cinema very interesting, since there are no films in the programme relating to the Lithuanian school of documentary film as we know it. Just as you said, experimental films are turning into representatives of the creative documentary genre.

DN: Like, for instance, Feedback by Simona Žemaitytė.

MV: But that piece is more of a work with archival material, and in my opinion this tradition tends to be related to experimental cinema.

DN: The work by Žemaitytė is certainly uncommon, the archive itself is unique. We still tend to perceive working with archives as something to do with analogue film. In this case, it is a personal archive of digital records, and working with material of this kind is genuinely difficult. I agree that this niche is still quite neglected in Lithuania, and not appreciated from a creative point of view. But Simona Žemaitytė is working very seriously in this field. Moreover, the archive itself encompasses a truly interesting period: Kaunas in the 1980s, London in the 1990s. Only after learning about the acquaintance of Laure Prouvost and Saulius Čemolonkas did I see how much Saulius’ anarchy has influenced the early work of Prouvost. I believe this will be a pleasant discovery for contemporary art circles that are familiar with Prouvost’s work.

MV: I must confess, I found it rather challenging pinpointing the subject of the second part of the programme. It consists of Agents by Anastasija Sosunova, Places by Vytautas Katkus, Helpless Cure by Miša Skalskis and Milda Januševičiūtė, and The Last Day by Klaudija Matvejevaitė. I had previously seen all of the films, and enjoyed them very much, but I am intrigued to know why you put them together.

DN: I was very glad to include The Last Day by Klaudija Matvejevaitė. The entire second part of the programme was built with this film in mind. I think that first of all, all these films are joined by the thread of a certain cultural conflict. The piece by Anastasija Sosunova is about the conflict between ‘low’ and ‘high’ cultures. In the piece by Vytautas Katkus, we can see a distinct relationship between people who have been shaped in a liberal environment but function in urban districts of the Soviet legacy. The division between the two mentalities is very distinct: between a common one and one completely digitalised or predetermined by social media. I enjoyed the set-up of these encounters, they are both real and unreal. This ‘game without an object’ metaphor corresponds to it perfectly. Also, the conversations lead nowhere, and yet they are truly rich: they are very indicative. In the piece Helpless Cure, we encounter how young people understand what it means to be elderly. This subject manifests itself through juxtaposition, through playing with children. A big dramatic tension emerges. By the way, this topic has rarely been touched on in Lithuanian cinema, especially with such lightness and fluency. There are directors who have made films about elderly people, but without any juxtaposition like the one that is presented here. I am glad the piece has a musical layer. And the film by Klaudija Matvejevatė is an adaptation of another powerful work, which has, by the way, become such only after this cinematic adaptation. It is a very timely film, and we should all know that D-Day will come. This day is always near us, and our time is limited. Besides, we have values, not great values, but mundane ones, and through the lens of sudden death we are reminded that we ought to value everything. It is a very existential work of art. Despite being made by someone just setting out, it has very good elements. And since this is an auteur programme, some connections are emotional: this is how I perceived these works of art.

MV: Was it important for you to display the technological diversity of the films?

DN: I do like the fact that cinema formats have remained versatile. Even though I am quite sceptical about the use of 16 mm at the present time, the format was used in Corolla by Gintautė Skvernytė very accurately. In her project, flower blossoms are placed on eyelids like little sculptures, and the material is filmed with a close-up lens. The work has the magic of 16 mm film. This silent piece is several minutes long, but it becomes a sculpture, and reveals splendidly the tension between the moving eyelid and the manufactured plant object. I think that, first and foremost, the piece is feminist, a manifestation of a sense of dignity, but it is also an expression of the fragility of blossoming nature.

MV: To be honest, the work helped mе unlock the entire first part of the programme. I did wonder what this part was about, but after watching Corolla I thought that, first and foremost, it was about our relationship with the environment and nature. Yet Dummy by Laurynas Bareiša is also included in this part.

DN: The plot of his film unravels with lush vegetation in the background, and it dissonates with the scenery: such a brutal story happens in these marvellous surroundings. Bareiša’s film is very dense and intense, and it is a long time since I’ve seen such intense narrative cinema. A full palette is presented in the first part of the programme. I needed I Put on the Ivy Crown by Emilija Noreikaitė as a vocalisation of the Greek myth. I really liked the text of this film. And for a programme that is, in fact, about humans’ relationship with the environment, a comprehensive and coherent text was necessary: it allows us to listen attentively to the repeating cycles of Nature without forgetting our own nature.

MV: In the third part, the most prominent is the subject of the Soviet legacy.

DN: Partly, yes. In this part we have an introduction: Man with a Render Animation Camera by Žilvinas Baranauskas, then come The Juggler by Skirmanta Jakaitė, Techno, Mama by Saulius Baradinskas, the already-mentioned Feedback by Simona Žemaitytė, and Footstones in Night Writing by Emilija Škarnulytė. We keep returning to the point of departure in this part, but having acquired a different experience. I have been working on this subject myself for almost 30 years now, but I like how the postcolonial discourse is being constructed from a culturally multi-layered experience. It is no longer regional, no longer linguistic, nor indicative or easily recognisable. It is integrated into the memory, into traumatic experience. In my opinion, this programme unfolds the postcolonial discourse through generational differences, allowing us to read completely different social and economic layers. For instance, Techno, Mama is postcolonial, as its fabula contains a conflict with a middle-aged woman who has not adapted to living under the circumstances of capitalism. It is a social portrait of a lower social class. However, not all that generation wanted this experience. On the other hand, the protagonist suffocates from a lack of self-expression, and uses his queer identity, queer culture and techno music to dissociate himself from mainstream culture. To fulfil his self, the protagonist has to move to a metropolis. But there is also a positive side to it: the conflict between the past and the present is expressed through magnificent architecture, through the environment, the sophisticated nightlife and club culture. The director’s work, the camera and the editing are all very precise. It was simply pleasant, almost leisurely, to watch.

MV: We have discussed the subjects and genres of all three parts of the programme. Have you noticed an attribute that unites the current generation of video art, cinema and animation artists?

DN: I think this generation is self-critical, it has started to develop a certain sense of humour. I think Lithuanian cinema lacked those two elements, or maybe it was well encrypted, and now bares to the very essence, as happens in the work of Sosunova, Katkus, and also in Bareiša’s Dummy, which is ironic about television culture itself. A mastery of television and cinema language is characteristic of many of the artists.