Jedi Rapfogel: “The mission of the Anthology Film Center is to preserve and reveal interesting and unfamiliar works of art to viewers.”
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Diāna Jance, “Kultūrzīmes”, JSC “Latvijas Mediji”
As early as May 26, in cooperation with the film institutions of the three Baltic States, the Anthology Film Archives, important in the world of culture, in New York, exhibits an outstanding work from the 1960s and 1970s. selection of films from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
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The Baltic Modernism cinema program was planned to be shown in the cinemas of the Anthology Archive already in the spring of 2020, but now until June 8, the program is available free of charge online all over the world.
The films have been selected by Luka Brasišķis, a Lithuanian-born cinematographer living in New York, in collaboration with the National Film Center, the Lithuanian Film Center and the Estonian Film Institute.
A few days after the start of the online program “Baltic Modernist Cinema: Between Imagination and Reality”, “Culture Marks” invited Jedi Rapfogel, curator of the Anthology Film Archive, for a short conversation.
– Would you tell us what this Baltic modernist film parade would have looked like last year?
J. Rapfogels: – Baltic films were planned to be shown in both our cinemas in April 2020. Whenever possible, it is important for us to show films in 35 mm, 16 mm and 8 mm formats, as they were originally made, and most of the Baltic films were also produced in 35 mm format.
But that was not the case. Since last year, we have started showing films virtually, online, and so we finally decided to show Baltic films.
“Apple in the river”
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The mission of the Anthology Film Center is to preserve and reveal interesting and unfamiliar works of art to the audience. More than fifty years ago, in 1970, the Anthology Archive was founded with the aim of preserving the most important works of art in experimental, avant-garde and independent cinema.
We make sure that our archives contain a variety of films, both from different countries and from important periods in history, including notable people. Thus, showing Baltic films of the sixties and eighties of the last century directly corresponds to our concept.
I think this is very important, because this cinema is little known in New York, I admit that hardly at least one of these films has ever been shown here.
Shot from Kalju Kīska’s World War II drama “Madness” (1968).
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– It seems that now viewers will only benefit because you show movies online all over the world and for free. How large an audience would have watched them in cinemas?
– Yes, there will probably be a big difference – one of our cinemas has 187 seats, the other – about 70. It is difficult to say how many viewers would have watched them in person, usually we show each film two or three times.
I think that the big hall would not be sold out all the time, maybe it would be watched by a hundred to 150 spectators. Online, the situation is very different. We try to take advantage of it – that is, whenever possible, we provide access in many countries, we offer free access.
I’ve researched that online paid movies are attended by so few viewers that it makes more sense to show them for free. Over the past year, our audience has grown and expanded.
At present, a large number of New York cinemas have been reopened for a couple of weeks now, but we have decided to open the halls of the Anthology Archive only in the middle of summer.
– In the 1960s, the Baltic cultural space was closed to the outside world, or you can feel it while watching these films?
– The message and visual language of the film is strong and unusual. Although I don’t specialize in Baltic cinema, I’ve actually only watched these nine films. Judging by them, Baltic cinema is something that American viewers should get to know better. I was most impressed by Latvian films, especially the documentary feature film (“Apple in the River”), as well as the cultural musical “Four White Shirts” and the crime drama (“Let’s Be”).
The movies are really great and very different from each other. Comparing them with other films of that time, I think that our Lithuanian representative Luka Brasišķis has rightly pointed out that the films reflect the trends and technical innovations of that time that appeared in the world at that time – both the French new wave and interesting cinematic style in Latin America and elsewhere.
All this together expanded the techniques of filmmaking, at that time cinema included subjective elements. Before the start of the program, we had a video discussion with representatives of the Baltic Film Institutes and discussed whether the Baltic New Cinematographers had access to French New Wave films at the time, although this still seems to be an open question.
But either way – whether it was a direct influence or something like that vibrated in the air of the world at that time, it can be felt in the Baltic films of that time. I am convinced that these films fit the general mood and directly correspond to the trends of the world cinema art of the sixties.
Shot from Arūnas Žebrūnas’ stunning childhood drama “Beauty” (1969).
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– With movies you give your viewers a chance to forget the pandemic…
– I really believe in the power of culture and its positive impact on society. Cinema is one of the strongest ways to involve people, inspire their thoughts, arouse sensitivity.
Cinema is one of the best ways to forget. The pandemic closed cinemas and museums, but the culture did not stop evolving and remained available in a virtual way. The fact that any cultural event moved to the Internet and became widely available is one of the positive aspects of the pandemic.
On the other hand, competition has intensified – we used to compete with some three of New York’s Arthouse cinemas, now we have to compete with Netflix, Amazon and many more.
Culture has played an invaluable role in a pandemic, I think many have consumed culture more than ever before – watching movies, reading books, listening to music. But I also would not like to exaggerate the importance of cinema last year, the most important thing being health and safety.
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