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Baltic Screen Industries Continue to Surge Despite Global Turmoil, Uncertainty
The film and TV industries in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have showed surprising resilience despite the war in Ukraine and economic uncertainty.
To get a sense of the state of cinema in the Baltic countries today, you could look instead to Park City, Utah, where two of the region’s filmmakers — Estonia’s Anna Hints and Lithuania’s Marija Kavtaradze — took home directing prizes at last year’s Sundance Film Festival: Hints for her debut documentary “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” Kavtaradze for her sophomore feature “Slow.” Those wins felt somehow emblematic for the tiny Baltic nations, which — with a combined population of roughly six million — have nevertheless shown a knack for punching above their weight. There haven’t been any budget cuts on our side in [government] funding,” says Alise Gelze, of Riga-based production company White Picture, who’s currently in post-production with “Blue Blood,” Juris Kursietis’ follow-up to his 2019 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight player “Oleg.” Production continues to surge at or near pre-pandemic heights, but for a young country where memories of Soviet rule are still fresh, the war in Ukraine and Moscow’s bellicose threats of a widening conflict only add to broader unease.
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