#PANEL Family, intimate filming with an important story to tell: “Free skate”
We started the next day of meetings and discussions with a panel with special guests Veera Vilo, Roope Olenius and Raimo Joerand.
Veera Vilo, the screenwriter and performer of the lead role in Free Skate, and director Raimo Joerand, talked about working on the film and their inspirations. The most important reference point for Vilo in her preparation for the role was the ballerina character played by Natalie Portman in the film Black Swan. Thanks to her personal experience, the Finnish actress did not need a stuntman for the stunts on ice shown in the film. For the director, on the other hand, the model for the film form was the style of Christopher Nolan.
Raimo Joerand, the Estonian director of Gorikaturist, spoke about how he incorporated animation into a documentary film. In his work, he decided to bring to life the drawings of caricaturist Gori and, through them, present part of the biography of the title character.
#PANEL Belarusian Independent Film Academy – how does it support filmmakers in exile?
Special guests on the afternoon panel were members of the Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA). Mikalai Lauraniuk, Irena Kacialovič and Yuliya Samailouskikh talked about the foundations and activities of this organization.
The solidarity that formed between a group of Belarusian filmmakers after a protest in response to the rigged 2020 elections and a collective statement condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine led to the formation of BIFA. It is an organization of Belarusian filmmakers who oppose the regime in their home country and want to spread awareness of the political crisis there.
Many BIFA-affiliated filmmakers have had to leave Belarus to continue their creative activities without fear of censorship and potential repression. Among other things, the Academy helps filmmakers get international funding to make independent films, or promotes Belarusian films abroad – by organizing meetings with filmmakers and creating VOD platforms [https://en.vodblisk.northernlightsff.com].
Part of the meeting was also devoted to a discussion of the attractiveness of Belarusian cinema to Polish viewers. Distributors Konrad Sosnowski and Yannick Rudynski shared their insights into why films from Belarus and the rest of Eastern Europe mostly fail to make money for themselves in Polish cinemas.
