Nikita Lavretski: "I believe now is the best time for a revolution."

Maksim Karpitski: Let's start with discussing the present situation when so many people have digital cameras, and perhaps most of them have at one point tried to shoot a film, while you not only started but go on making films. Why are you so passionate about cinema?

Nikita Lavretski: All my creative work, everything I do is with highest aspirations. I strive to create something beautiful. I don't care much about the difference in methods of achieving this. What was it you were saying?

M.K.: I mean that a lot of people make just one attempt at shooting a film, sometimes it even turns out to be a good one, and then that's it. Perhaps it's because there's no distribution, no hope that someone in Belarusfilm will say: “Hey, you've done some interesting work, come and make a feature for us”. It doesn't stop you, does it?

N.L.: I think the Internet is the thing now. My goal, my utmost desire is to be loved by the public, so to say. There seems to exist a demand, now in 2015 in the Republic of Belarus, for films that show life as it is here. People are interested in seeing themselves and there are very few films about that. Doesn't it stop me not to have any commercial prospects? Not really. I think people are interested in my work. It's not modest and still... I'm not even talking about my own films, there're so few films made and there's a demand for many more. There are perhaps 50 films a year but we need 500.

M.K.: You are talking about existing demand for Belarusian films, but who are those interested people? Do you have an image of your audience?

N.L.: I don't know, I make films for any preson, really. I can't predict who will enjoy them and who won't. Since there's no particular image you could say I make them for myself. I mean that the only measure I can trust to tell sublime from ugly is my own taste. I don't deal in categories like I don't like this but someone else might enjoy it. One more thing, when I'm talking about beauty I mean three notions that are inseparable for me: interest, beauty and goodness, so to say. Essentially, for me every beautiful film is good, every good film is interesting, every interesting film is beautiful. I make no exceptions here.

M.K.: Your short film Birthday in Minsk is so far the best known one. It was screened at Bratislava International Film Festival and will soon be screened at Cinema Perpetuum Mobile Film Festival. Why do you think this film is more successful than others?

N.L.: Maybe because it's the first film I shot in HD, entirely in HD that is. I think this is its main advantage over others. But just like the rest it's unevenly shot and perhaps isn't even the most interesting of my films. It's such a simple story.

M.K.: Don't you think it could be because the film not only tells this simple story but also captures some zeitgeist? This guy who's wandering about and doesnt't really know what to do with himself, and…

N.L.: Well, yes, I'd even say more… Minsk isn't in the title for nothing. By the way, when something is unclear in my films, I always give a hint in the title. It's not even so much that the guy doesn't know where to apply himself but that he doesn't have any support or real home. He goes to study to another city in another country, then comes back, he is twice accepted as a student at EHU and twice expelled. But when he's back in Minsk, Minsk doesn't accept him either. In the script he says that he believed everything would be waiting for him here, but in fact nobody was expecting him. In general this is a film about a preson feeling alienated in a home place. There's a scene when he is looking at the infamous new hotel in Gorky Park and he's talking in verse, unsuccessfully trying to discern the former skyline. It's about nostalgia as well. The real, material embodiment of the changes in Minsk is also present.

M.K.: How do you work with a script? Where do you take your stories from? When you shoot, do you allow the actors to improvise?

N.L.: Well, that's a good question. From many sources. Something is purely my phantasy, something is very close to reality. For instance, Birthday in Minsk is very close to the story of Anton Scheleg who stars in it as the protagonist. This story served as insiration. As for improvising I leave almost no space for that. I write the dialogues so that they would seem improvised, with fillers and so on. Sometimes in my script you can find a page with 8 out of 12 remarks starting with “well”. Birthday in Minsk is practically the same as its script, maybe a couple of words are somewhat rearranged. Just on scene from the script is missing. So all in all I try to keep to the written word.

M.K.: Can you share the story behind To Ruth?

N.L.: It's a unique project. It's also based on real story, 90% of the film is based on a blog of this guy who lives in New Jersey, he's a hikikomori, former military, he's 25 and obsessed with this girl who runs a video-blog on youtube. Frankly speaking, I adapted his blog rather freely as it was like a novel in size. I don't remember exactly what I was thinking about, I just wanted to make a film about the Internet. It turned out to be very gloomy. I remember thinking that I created a monster, that I had to destroy it.

M.K.: It's probably the darkest of your films.

N.L.: Yes, it's really dark. It collected the largest number of views on youtube, though. 5000 or something like that.

M.K.: You tend to prefer underplay in your films...

N.L.: I think that in most films acting is too emotional. Almost all films nominated for Oscar are too emotional. As for me, I think that when people are talking like we do now, they don't express much emotion, they use more or less the same intonation. I can't say that acting in my films fully expresses my intentions and that it's always beautiful and engaging to watch but if there's undreplay, it's not because I failed but because I aimed to do something of the kind. It's better to undeplay than to overplay.

M.K.: There's a decent amount of humor in your films but it sometimes seems that audience can be slow to get it.

N.L.: Yes, there's humor and both times I've been present at public screenings of Every Day Love people were reacting properly, laughed at the awkward phrases of my character. Humor can also be sensed through the acting, sound and video quality. Even the fact that you cannot see the faces, that was done on purpose. I can tell in more detail.

M.K.: Go ahead.

N.L.: I like that you can easily get the humor there, and fell the palpable emotions of the characters even though it's all very lo-fi, underfilmed so to say. I dislike showing faces in close-up, because I think that when people are talking, especially if they know each other well, they don't perceive one another physically, in categories like faces. You could say they rather perceive each other as beings of intellect. I'd say when you show someone in master long shot and they are talking, it's easier to identify with them than when you use a close-up. Particularly if that's a close-up with just the face in close-up and everything else blurred, this looks very ugly to me. As if the person is filmed by a fly or with a surveillance camera. People hardly see themselves like that. You need to shoot films in POV, broadly speaking. So if we go back to humor, of course there's humor and I don't know any good films without it. It's everywhere, in everything. But To Ruth and Birthday in Minsk have one common trait. The characters are probably pathetic, but I never look down on them. It's one of my ideals to make films without irony. There's even a term for this — post-ironic cinema — I believe that films now shouldn't employ dramatic irony. In To Ruth or Birthday in Minsk I always tried to imagine myself in the characters' place. Maybe that's why To Ruth is so gloomy, it's also in POVand the character's thoughts come up on the screen. A lot of absurd, funny phrases that I adapted from the blog. Still, I never show him as an idiot. It's important that I don't try to make fun of my characters.

M.K.: Now that you mention it yourself, in this film and some others you visualize thoughts as onscreen text. You also have a lot of text information like when somebody's typing. Why do you employ so much text? I'd say this isn't typical.

N.L.: Exactly. As far as I remember that's my original idea. I don't know where I could have taken it from at least.

M.K.: It's usually the function of offscreen voice.

N.L.: I've always thought that since I try to keep to first person narration, my characters' thoughts are important. I tried to use offscreen voice once but it doesn't sound like when you are thinking something yourself. So I decided that if I use onscreen text people will read with their own internal voices, and that's more suitable.

M.K.: When you film people talking your shots are not only without close-ups but also mostly static. Is this a conscious choice?

N.L.: There are two sides to this: on the sensual level it's more engaging to watch edited movement but you should only edit with a purpose. Sometimes it's also certain lack of skill but overall I try to think whether the movement is necessary. Still, it's better not to discuss this in general. Sometimes I do use close-ups when they are POV-shots. Every Day Love is filmed in black-and-white but one shot is in color, that's when the characters go out on the balcony and protagonist's girlfriend is filming her with his mobile phone. Her face is quite close there. That's a shot I'm pround of and there aren't many shots that make me feel proud. The idea was to film everything objectively and in monochrome, in God's point of view esthetically. Like in Lav Diaz. So when the protagonist is on the balcony, I switch to color to show that the characters are in this wonderful moment, and life can be rich and beautiful. I wanted to contrast this and dry objective static shots.

M.K.: Have you thought of making a feature film?

M.L.: I have several ideas. But what I want most is not just a feature but a film that would be better shot.

M.K.: What would you like to be different in this hypothetical project?

M.L.: First of all, I'd like to have some division of labor. I want to find a camera man, an editor, a producer. Because now I have to deal with everything and it's hard to focus on directing. Some people are helping me and I'm grateful to them but I feel that more people can be involved in making cinema. I believe that now everyone can make a beautiful film without having to compromise. People should shoot films at home, in their own bedrooms. I think it's high time for such a revolution. No-budget films don't have to be inferior to big-budget ones.

(The films by Nikita Lavretski can be seen here. Original interview is here. The text was translated for the Warsaw FIPRESCI project. Unfortunately, just when I recieved a formal invitation I had to decline it. So here it is. Тэкст быў перакладзены для ўдзелу ў Warsaw FIPRESCI project. Ад паездкі, на жаль, давялося адмовіцца, але пераклады я вырашыў размясціць тут.)