Lithuania
Moving-image pioneer Ladislas Starewitch, a Russian of Lithuanian origin, shot a dozen films in the 1910s, most of them using puppets, but also dead animals and insects (!). Hired as director of the Kaunas Museum of Natural History, he produced animated documentaries for the institution. The Cameraman's Revenge (1912) tells a story of infidelity and jealousy between insects. The film, made in stop motion, is a real gem!
In the contemporary period, Šarūnas Bartas has made a name for himself. In 1995, The Corridor depicted the problems of life for the people of Vilnius. It's a magnificent example of fragmented, dialogue-free storytelling, carried by Russian actress Yekaterina Golubeva. With his 2017 film Frost, presented at Cannes, he cast actress Vanessa Paradis in the role of a reporter in the war zone of Donbass, Ukraine, against the backdrop of armed conflict.
Estonia
Estonia produces very few films. However, two Estonian directors, both born in 1946, stand out in their fields. Priit Pärn, cartoonist and director, has won numerous awards for his creations such as Triangle (1982), Breakfast on the Grass (1987), Hotel E (1992) and Night of the Carrots (1998). Mark Soosaar, meanwhile, is crossing Europe with his documentary film Le Père, le fils et le saint Toroum, about a father and son belonging to the Khanty people of Western Siberia.
In 2014, European audiences were treated to Crosswind: La Croisée des vents by young prodigy Martti Helde. This beautiful black-and-white film recounts the life of an Estonian deportee in Siberia. In 2023, Anna Hints' documentary The Smoke Sauna Sisterhood , winner of multiple awards including one at the Sundance Film Festival, recounts the lives of women in the intimacy of a sauna.
Latvia
Rīga is the birthplace of one of the world's best-known film directors and theorists: Sergei Eisenstein. Considered the "father of montage", this monument to the seventh art directed Battleship Potemkin in 1925, which many consider to be the greatest propaganda film of all time.
Since the fall of the USSR, one of the most popular films is Defenders of Riga (2007) by Aigars Grauba. It recounts the Latvian army's fight for independence in 1919. The outdoor scenes were shot at Cinevilla in Tukums, where Latvia's first backlot (the outdoor area of a studio designed to house permanent sets) was built for the occasion.
Films and series shot in the Baltic States
One of the films in the horrific Hannibal saga, Hannibal Lecter: The Origins of Evil (2007), starring Gaspard Ulliel, is set in Lithuania. However, this part of the film was actually shot in a studio in Prague, which doesn't take away from Lithuania's sulphurous reputation.
The Baltic states have recently introduced attractive tax incentives for international productions, including Christopher Nolan's Tenet, released in 2020 and shot in Tallinn, and Craig Mazin's HBO series Chernobyl. The latter was filmed in Lithuania: the town of Pripyat is depicted on the streets of Fabijoniškės in Vilnius, while the former Ignalina power plant serves as a replica of the one in Chernobyl. As for Lukiškės prison, it features in season 4 of the Duffer brothers' Stranger Things.
Tallinn's power station was also the setting for Stalker (1979) by the eminent Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. Also shot in Tallinn, Screwed in Tallinn (1999), a film produced by the Swedish comedy group Killinggänget, depicts the encounter between tourists and Baltic locals. This mockumentary follows a group of Swedes on a trip to Tallinn, hoping to meet single Estonian women.