7 Greater Boston Film Festivals to Check Out this Winter by Erin Trahan (January 12, 2023)
The Russian threat of war on Ukraine, some 300 miles south of the Baltics, loomed large last February, with the invasion taking place a few days before this festival kicked off. .Though production cycles mean that this year’s titles will not likely address the nearby war head-on, past programs make clear that the grip of forced occupation has never been fully loosened. (Read full article)
A Baltic State of Mind by Peter Keough. (February 17, 2022)
As the Russia/Ukraine standoff intensifies, so too does the anxiety in countries that had once been part of the Soviet Union. (Read full article)
Massachusetts Ukrainians and Supporters Cry Out in Protest Against Russian Invasion by Craig LeMoult (February 24, 2022)
Ukranian flags covered the plaza in front of the State House. But there was also a Lithuanian flag. Karolis Kaupinis is one of the men holding it. He's a film director visiting from Lithuania, in town to premiere his new movie at the Boston Baltic Film Festival. He's worried about his country's immediate future.
"We just know that we are next," he said. "That's always according to the same playbook. So it's just a matter of time, if nothing is being done to stop that." (Read full article)
For press inquiries contact BBFF Team at info@bostonbalticfilm.org
9 Greater Boston Film Festivals to Check Out this Winter by Erin Trahan (January 12, 2024)
.Between 1959 and 2007 Latvian director Rolands Kalniņš (1922-2022) made 14 feature films, including “Four White Shirts,” shelved for decades because of its criticism of Soviet censorship. It screens this year as part of a tribute on March 3. Also showing is the documentary, “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” a critical favorite from 2023 that situates women’s revelations about their bodies and shame inside the traditional saunas of Southern Estonia.
Festival organizers prioritize having guests in person if at all possible. This year at least 10 filmmakers plan to attend. (Read full article)
YOUR GUIDE TO THE BOSTON AREA’S INDIE THEATERS AND FILM FESTIVALS by Sean Burns and Erin Trahan (June 30, 2023)
.Boston has one of the most enviable film cultures in the country… It’s a thriving, welcoming scene full of fun repertory programming and more film festivals than one person could possibly have enough time to attend.
NOTABLE FILM FESTIVALS: BOSTON BALTIC FILM FESTIVAL
Contemporary fictional and documentary films from Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania make up this festival, which began in 2018. Titles lean toward the historic and often address the lasting impact of Soviet rule over the now independent region. Many directors travel from the Baltics to appear with their films. (Read full article)
EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER TO TELL STORY OF HISTORIC CUMBERLAND COUNTY BUSINESS by Vincent Jackson (May 9, 2023)
Helga Merits, whose work focuses on refugees and dislocation after World War II, is making a film, “The Paradox of Seabrook Farms,” about the company that is not just based on its business success. Seabrook employed 5,000 workers from 25 countries speaking 30 different languages. Merits, whose father was Estonian, was in this country in 2018 for a screening of her fifth documentary, “Coming Home Soon: The Refugee Children of Geislingen,” at the Boston Baltic Film Festival. After the screening in Boston, about 10 people approached Merits and told her they had a similar experience growing up in Seabrook. (Read full article)
Boston Baltic Film Festival Foregrounds Countries' Break from Soviet Rule by Erin Trahan (February 22, 2022)
The film festival began in 2018 as part of Boston’s centennial celebration of Baltic independence. Wartime backdrops and the lingering influence of Soviet occupation loom large in contemporary cinema from the Baltic countries. That’s the case for the 11 films from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia showing in this year’s. (Read full article)
DocTalk: On the Barricades of Europe — The Boston Baltic Film Festival by Peter Keough (March 3, 2023)
Had Putin’s invasion of Ukraine gone according to plan the former Soviet Socialist Republics and current NATO members Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia might well have been next on his hit list. These countries had been through it before: their populations know all too well what it’s like to live under Russian subjugation as is seen in the trenchant and timely documentaries in this year’s Boston Baltic Film Festival (Read full article)
BBFF DISPATCH #1, #2, #3, #4 by Joshua Polanski (March 2023)
In a series of dispatches from the festival, Joshua Polanski give us wonderfully insightful reviews of this year’s BBFF films: #1 Upurga/Kalev, #2 Neon Spring/Tree of Eternal Love, #3 Sisters/January , #4 Melchior the Apothecary/Melchior the Apothecary. The Ghost. (Read full articles)
BBFF INTERVIEW: DIRECTOR UĢIS OLTE ON ‘UPURGA’ by Joshua Polanski (March 10, 2023)
Uģis Olte: I have a theory. Nature is a feminine force, so they are more connected to it.
BH: What films directly inspired Upurga?
UO: Annihilation, because of this idea that it’s nature that we know but it’s different. Then Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker and the way he filmed this Baltic landscape. And because he filmed in Estonia, that really left an impression on me. And also Twin Peaks because an ordinary forest has dementedness hidden. (Read full interview)
NEON SPRING REVIEW by Sascha Rifkin (March 14, 2023) “Neon Spring” is a beautiful piece which is able to follow Laine’s journey, including her mistakes, without demonizing the choices. The cinematography and scene work makes it worth the watch, but the powerful narrative is what keeps the audience interested. (Read full review)
BBFF INTERVIEW: DIRECTOR LINDA OLTE ON ‘SISTERS’ by Joshua Polanski (March 15, 2023)
BH: Where did the idea for Sisters originate?
LO: I wanted to do a documentary. I don’t know how it came to mind—I grew up in a loving family with (a) mom and dad and two sisters, no orphanage experience—but I was coming back from the Berlin International Film Festival, sleeping in an airport thinking about what film I could make, and then I got this idea. I couldn’t do a documentary because I couldn’t show the faces… so we said, “Okay, we should do a feature.” I think it’s even better because I could collect more stories and put them into one.