by Ron Holloway

“Ooops - wrong films, wrong country,” ran my email apology to Lelda Ozola, head of the MEDIA Desk Latvia in Riga. In my query about the new MEDIA programme expanding to the Baltics, I had erroneously listed her country’s production input under Lithuania, instead of Latvia. “Don’t worry,” came the answer back. “We’re used to being confused with other Baltic countries. At least, you didn’t list us under the Balkans!”

Rolling with the punch, I then asked her whether the term “Baltics” should apply only to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - or, as sometimes seen in news reports, to all the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea. I specifically had in mind the Baltic Media Centre (BMC), based on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. Throughout the 1990s, the BMC had sponsored the Balticum Film & TV Festival, a spring event that invited entries from the nine contiguous Baltic Seas countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Poland - to “a melting-pot of languages, cultures, and film genres” in Gudhjem, a picturesque town on the north coast of Bornholm. Also, in September of 2002, the BMC cosponsored in Riga the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries, opened to entries from the Baltic States and Russia/CIS.

Again, Lelda Ozola came back with a clip answer: “Historically the term applies only to the three Baltic States, and I don’t think it might soon include all the countries around the Baltic Sea. However, the cooperation with these countries already exists, and it is stronger than our cooperation with other countries. Scandinavians are assisting us hardily and looking for us as their partners for different projects more often than other European countries. And projects that link all the countries around the Baltic Sea already exist. So, whether you say Baltics or Balticum, it’s the geographical solidarity that’s felt in the film world.”

Marge Liiske, head of the MEDIA desk Estonia in Tallinn, concurred with her colleague in Riga on the “Baltics” conundrum, adding a couple teasing twists of her own. “If you were to ask the Scandinavians whether or not they want to be called the Baltics, I bet they wouldn’t agree either!” Then a joker slipped out of her deck as the trump card: “By the way, the name for the Baltic Sea in Estonian is Läänemeri - meaning Western Sea. And we use that word in our language more often than Baltic Sea.”

As for the comments and opinions on the matter by someone at the MEDIA Desk Lithuania in Vilnius, no one could be reached because the desk has yet to be opened. According to Nils Koch, head of the MEDIA Desk in Brussels, who is currently facilitating the MEDIA programme expansion to the Baltics, “the contract with Lithuania has not been signed as yet, although we are currently working with a senior government official on the matter.” Apparently, Audra Molyte in the Ministry of Culture will be heading the MEDIA Desk Lithuania in the near future.

Nils Koch offered some vital statistics on the current status of MEDIA enlargement. As of 1 January 2003, the European Commission (EC) approved measures to enable three new countries - Lithuania, Slovakia, and Cyprus - to join the ongoing MEDIA programme, which began in 2001 and runs until 2005. These three countries joined six other candidate countries that signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” in 2002: Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia. A tenth country - Hungary - is scheduled to join in 2004, when “problems with their audiovisual legislation” are resolved.
 
What exactly are the advantages of joining the MEDIA programme? One clear plus was underscored in an address by Viviane Reding, the EC member responsible for Education and Culture, “film productions by the 15 member countries and the 9 candidates will now be able to circulate more easily, thus assuring more European cultural diversity.” Candidate countries would also gain entry to Media Plus and Media Training. A recent study by the European Audiovisual Observatory revealed that between 1996 and 2001 only 42 films from countries in Central and Eastern Europe were distributed commercially in at least one EC member state, to be viewed by an audience total of 2.2 million - in effect, a market share of 0.054%!
 
Translated into practical terms, admission to the MEDIA programme means greater possibilities for European coproduction. Baltic filmmakers, for instance, could apply to MEDIA for 50% of budget costs, the other 50% of the finances to be raised by the applicant via partners, coproducers, and the local film institute or cultural ministry. And they can turn to other MEDIA Desks in the Baltic Sea region for advice and assistance.
 
Soren Stevns, head of the MEDIA Desk Denmark in Copenhagen, has been beating the drum the loudest on behalf of the Baltic States. “I have been supporting Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for the past 11 years,” he said. And he added: “Denmark, you know, was the first foreign country to send an ambassador to Estonia. And the Baltic Media Centre (BMC) in Bornholm has been linking all the filmlands around the Baltic Sea in a regional showcase called the Balticum Film and TV Festival. Over the past year and a half, I have visited Tallinn five times, Riga and Vilnius twice each, to help facilitate their entry into the Media Plus programme and the western way of film production.” Stevns also pointed out that two Danish production companies, Zentropa and A Film in Denmark, have established daughter companies in Estonia, partially financed by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
 
Denmark is not the only country to lend a helping hand to the financially strapped and politically isolated filmmakers of the Baltic States. Even before the Baltic States declared their independence - Estonia and Lithuania in 1990, Latvia in 1991 - the Northern Film Days in Lübeck made a point of inviting films from the Baltic States as an exception to their Scandinavian portfolio. The (West) German festival invitation was a return gesture to the First “Arsenals” International Film Forum in Riga, held in 1988 and attended by avant-garde filmmakers from across Eastern and Western Europe.
 
Indeed, that first “Arsenals” - named for Alexander Dovzhenko’s 1929 avantgarde classic - made film history overnight back in September of 1988. On a scholarly level, its team of committed cineastes summoned a phalanx of film historians to participate in a symposium on Sergei Eisenstein (“a native son”), and they staged a series of exhibitions and performances that linked the graphic with the performing arts. On a film level, the Latvian School of Documentary Film (Herz Frank and Juris Podnieks) was spotlighted, and Alexander Sokurov was welcomed in Riga as a neighboring “St. Petersburg director” who had effectively bucked the Soviet system. “Arsenals,” a biennial event, still ranks today as one of the leading showcases for avant-garde cinema and digital works by independent directors.
 
To cite another study by the European Audiovisual Observatory on the status quo of cinema in the Baltic States, the following is the MEDIA breakdown on film production and exhibition in the year 2001:
 Production: Estonia - 3 fiction features (1 coproduction). Latvia - 3 fiction features (2 coproductions). Lithuania - 0 fiction features.
 Attendance: Estonia - 1.3 million (increase of 20.3% on 2000). Latvia - 1.15 million (decrease of 21.1% on 2000). Lithuania - 2.37 million (increase of 12.7% on 2000).
 Number of cinema venues: Estonia - 81. Latvia - 110. Lithuania - not known.
 Box office receipts: Estonia - Euro 4.7 million (increase of 52.9% over 2000). Latvia - Euro 3.4 million (decrease of 9.4% over 2000). Lithuania - Euro 4.2 million (decrease of 3.9% over 2000).
 Market share: Estonia - 3.6% (compared to US market share of 76.2%). Latvia - 7.3% (compared to US market share of 89.3% ). Lithuania - 1.2% (compared to US market share of 85.9% ).
 
Like all statistical charts, numbers only show half the picture. Ask someone in the know why Lithuania did not produce a single feature film in 2001, and he will probably answer that the country’s best director, the award-winning Sharunas Bartas (Few of Us, 1996), shot his last film, Freedom (2000, Venice competition entry), in Africa with international backing. And when Kristijonas Vildziunas premiered his debut feature The Lease, the story of a middle-aged woman picking up the pieces after her divorce, at the 2001 Film Spring Festival in Vilnius, the young director lamented that it took him nearly five years to find the necessary financial backing.
 
Further, there seems to a slight discrepancy between MEDIA production figures and those offered by the countries in question. Take Latvia, for instance. According to the National Film Centre (NFC) in Riga, the NFC in 2001 supported 6 fiction features, 3 coproductions, 11 documentaries, and 8 animation films. One of these was a rather unique coproduction between Latvia and Estonia: The Good Hands (2001, Karlovy Vary competition entry), a comedy about a Latvian girl in a village bordering Estonia that was directed by a prominent Estonian filmmaker.
 
Further, it should be noted on Estonia’s behalf that the 2002 Moscow film festival premiered the most expensive Estonian film ever made: Arvo Iho’s Heart of the Bear. An Estonian-German-Russian-Czech coproduction, this striking outdoor epic was shot in the wilds of the Urals, took eight years to complete (marked by frequent money-forced intervals), and cost in the end a fraction of what a Hollywood studio would have shelled out for the same results. In short, Heart of the Bear proved to be an effective calling-card for the Estonian Film Foundation, when the Marge Liisk’s MEDIA Desk is based.
 
Queried on the opportunities offered by MEDIA since the programme was implemented last July, Marge Liisk said: “We have really been benefiting from it. First, there’s the ‘real money’ - that is, support for our proposals. Estonia has presented seven projects (five under development support, one in TV distribution, one in film distribution). Three received a positive answer, two got a negative response, and two are still pending. Shortly we will issue on our webpage the financial breakdowns on the accepted projects.”
 
When asked about a financial input for Media Training, however, Liisk did confirm that the MEDIA Desk Estonia has allocated Euro 16,000 for scholarships for Estonian professionals. And she is hopeful that once Estonia becomes an EC member, then home production companies can more effectively enter the arena of international coproductions.
 
As for the three MEDIA approved projects, two are animation films. Mait Laas’s Miriam, a cartoon for children about the adventures of a pre-school girl, received Euro 20,000 in funding. Heiki Ernits and Janno Pöldma’s Lotte and Judo, an animated feature film about a friendship between a dog and a honeybee, received Euro 40,000. And Jaak Kilmi and Rene Reinumägi’s Revolution of Pigs, a fiction-film comedy for young audiences about the would-be revolt of a 16-year-old boy, received Euro 30,000 in MEDIA funding.

Lelda Ozola at the MEDIA Desk in Riga also feels that the expansion programme will work very well for Latvia. “During the last ten years our producers have always had to fight for financing wherever possible in order to make their films come true. The Media Plus programme offers them another ‘pocket’ to apply for money. And it’s very highly appreciated by those professionals in the industry aware that they can only survive by working on projects that can ‘sell’ internationally.”
 
Two MEDIA projects have already been approved. Antra Cilinska’s Celebration of Life, a fiction feature based on a popular novel by Nora Ikstena, has received Euro 20,000 in funding. Currently the director is looking for locations and actors in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. And Vilnis Kalnoellis’s Golden Horse, an animation feature film, has received Euro 50,000, the largest MEDIA seed money offered to any Baltic director to date. Kalnoellis confirms that Golden Horse has already attracted two European coproducers. Also, a Belgian animation designer flew in to Riga to work on the project for the rest of the year. “It’s a challenge,” said Kalnoellis, “but we like this kind of work and are hoping for the best.”

MEDIA DESKS -BALTIC STATES

MEDIA Desk Estonia
Ms. Marge Liiske
Estonian Film Foundation
Department of International Relations
Vana - Viru 3
EE-101 00 Tallinn
ESTONIA
Fon: +372-6 27 60 65
Fax: +372-6 27 60 61
Email: marge.liisk@efsa.ee
Website: http://www.mediadesk.efsa.ee/

MEDIA Desk Latvia
Ms. Lelda Ozola
National Film Centre of Latvia
Elizabetes 49
LV-1010 Tallinn
LATVIA
Fon: +371-7 50 50 79
Fax: +371-7 50 50 77
Email: lelda.ozola@nfc.gov.lv

MEDIA Desk Lithuania
Ms. Ieva Skarzinskaite
(address unknown)
Vilnius
LT-LITHUANIA
Fon: +370-5 261 29 21
Fax: (unknown)
Email:ieva@durys.org

MEDIA DESKS - OTHER BALTIC SEA STATES

MEDIA Desk Danemark (Denmark)
Mr. Søren Stevns
Vognmagergade 10
DK-1120 København
DANEMARK (DENMARK)
Fon: +45-33 74 34 42
Fax: +45-33 74 34 65
Email: media@centrum.dk
Webside: http://www.mediadesk.dk/

MEDIA Desk Deutschland (Germany)
Ms. Cornelia Hammelmann
Friedensallee 14-16
D-22765 Hamburg
DEUTSCHLAND
Fon: +49-40 390 65 85
Fax: +49-40 390 86 32
Email: info@mediadesk.de
Website: http://www.mediadesk.de/

MEDIA Desk Finland
Ms. Kerstin Degerman
Finnish Film Foundation
K 13, Kanavakatu 12
SF-00160 Helsinki
FINLAND
Fon: +358-9 62 20 30 13
Fax: +358-9 62 20 30 70
Email:kerstin.degerman@ses.fi
Website: www.ses.fi/mediadesk

MEDIA Desk Poland
Ms. Agata Pietkiewicz
Chelmska 21, Building 4A, room 218
PL-00 724 Warszawa
POLAND
Fon: +48-22 85 11 112
Fax: +48-22 85 11 112
Email:mediadesk@mediadesk.org.pl

MEDIA Desk Sverige (Sweden)
Ms. Lisa Taube
Ms. Ulrika Nisell
Svenska Filminstitutet
5, Borgvagen
S-10252 Stockholm
SVERIGE (SWEDEN)
Fon: +46-8 665 12 05
Fax: +46-8 666 37 48
Email:mediadesk@sfi.se
Website: www.sfi.se/mediadesk