Filmmakers exiled or displaced from their home countries should not let perfection be the enemy of progress on novel projects, according to spea
Filmmakers exiled or displaced from their home countries should not let perfection be the enemy of progress on novel projects, according to speakers on a panel at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF).
“Maybe we need to change the strategy to release the films earlier, so that the message comes out faster, and not care so much about the quality,” said Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis, who has worked with Ukrainian filmmakers including Roman Bondarchuk, on 2015 documentary Ukrainian Sheriffs.
“What I observed with directors from Ukraine is a high level of self-censorship, to make everything the best,” said Cekulis, who recommended filmmakers bring on novel collaborators to speed up post-production.
“Trust a fresh-eye editor who can put the right context to make it understandable outside. That will make things go much faster and make the film travel better. This is how we need to convince the director, because they want to keep control. Trust someone else to add to the story with a fresh eye.”
Cekulis was speaking on a six-person panel at the Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, titled ‘The Edge of Democracy: How to Remain a Filmmaker in the World Facing Challenges Like War, Displacement, (De)Colonization, Censorship’, this week.
The filmmakers detailed the difficulties of pulling together both previous and upcoming projects when working outside of their home countries.
Andrei Kashperski is a Belarusian filmmaker now based in Poland. He recently made a first season of series Processes, a tragicomedy about the absurd systems in Belarus, that Kashperski described as “like Black Mirror but without the technologies.” The series was funded by Polish-based, independent Belarusian-facing broadcaster Belsat TV, who also backed Kashperski’s shorts including ChinChins Go Nuts. “We cannot work with them further because they have their own struggle with financing right now,” said Kashperski.
His next project, Judgement Of The Dead, is about resurrected bodies who hunt their judges – inspired by a recent law in Belarus that allows deceased people to be sued. “We can’t find support from Belsat, that’s why we’re looking for other sources of how to finance it,” said Kashperski. “We are trying to search in Poland; we’re hoping to be present at Berlinale with the Belarusian Independent Film Academy (Bifa); and hopefully American finance will also be present.”
Scattered
The panel was organised by Volia Chajkouskaya, the Belarusian filmmaker who established the Northern Lights Nordic Baltic Film Festival in 2015, with the event supporting exiled Belarusian directors since 2020 and holding a dedicated Ukrainian programme since 2022.
“We’re so scattered geographically,” said Chajkouskaya of the challenges for filmmakers working outside their home country. “It’s important to keep this common vibe, the idea that we’re still together. We need to continue fighting.”
Chajkouskaya also set up the Bifa in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “We wanted to speak up on behalf of the Belarusian film community, that we don’t support this war, we don’t agree with the fake [Belarusian] president allowing the Russian dictator to use our territory to attack Ukraine,” said Chajkouskaya. “This showed that the community can unite, and create more opportunities to get funding.”
Writer Yulia Pogrebnyak, who was born in Minsk, Belarus before living in St Petersburg then settling in Finland, highlighted the difficulty that nationality can pose for novel projects. Pogrebnyak said she is writing a feature that she presented at a Berlinale pitching session this year, “about a Belarusian performance artist after the protests living in exile in Finland,” and is struggling in her search for a director.
“I’m applying for support from our Finnish film foundations,” said Pogrebnyak. “If the director is Belarusian, it’s a question why it should be supported by Finnish grants. If it’s a Finnish director, it’s not a Belarusian film.”
Audience members at the panel included Swedish producer Peter Krupenin, who produced Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha’s Berlinale 2024 Competition title My Favourite Cake. The Iranian directors were forbidden from leaving their country to attend the Berlinale; Krupenin gave an update on their situation, saying they were given their passports back after 14 months without them, only for Moghadam to try to leave the country to go to Sweden recently, at which point her passport was confiscated again.
Krupenin says he is working on a novel feature project with the duo, which they hope to shoot in Iran. “They have chosen not to be in exile,” said the producer. “They want to be in Iran.”
Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event wraps up today (Friday, November 22) with an award ceremony, before the main festival ceremony tomorrow.
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