Lithuanian company M-Films unveils the trailer for Sophomore Pic by Karolis Kaupinis
Hot Lithuanian producer Marija Razgutė of M-Films, credited for the award-winning films “Slow” at Sundance 2023 and “The Visitor” at Karlovy Vary this year, has unveiled a trailer for Karolis Kaupinis’ absurd drama “Hunger Strike Breakfast”.
The director’s second picture after his landmark debut “Nova Lituania”, Lithuania’s choice for the 2021 Oscars, has its world premiere in competition at the Warsaw Film Festival today, ahead of its national release in January 2026 via CinemaAds.
In the clip, one of the characters, Sigitas Bickus (Paulius Pinigis), quotes American alternative diet guru Paul Bragg’s book, “The Miracle of Fasting,” saying that “hunger cures all ills” to a small group of television journalists, about to begin a hunger strike to protest the occupation of their television building by Russian troops. As in “Nova Lithuania”, the director diverts real events and tense geopolitics to tell a deeply humanist story with warmth and humor.
The film is inspired by a little-known protest during Lithuania’s struggle for independence in 1991, when three television workers launched a hunger strike to retake the national television building from the Soviet army.
In the photo we follow Lithuanian TV star Daiva (Ineta Stasiulytė) who loses her job when the TV studios are taken over by Russian soldiers. Along with a few colleagues, including her television boss (Arvydas Dapšys) and a compassionate local resident (Paulius Pinigis), Daiva begins a hunger strike in a small caravan opposite the television station. Beyond political motivations, the group strives for human warmth and connection.
Kaupinis, who invented the characters after conducting several interviews with the real strikers, says: “On the surface it was a political fight, but the motivation was long-repressed feelings of loneliness, guilt, the desire for something big, important, beautiful and warm. »
Himself a former television presenter and editor of a weekly program devoted to political news, the director explains that conversations at the time with older television colleagues about these events piqued his interest. “During the pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine, it seemed to me an apt metaphor for my own current Lithuanian society: a small makeshift caravan, people on hunger strike, an aggressive enemy on one side and indifferent neighbors on the other.
Terrible loneliness in times of chaos and hunger strike as an opportunity to get closer to those who share the same fate.” Although he was only five years old in 1991, Kaupinis has vivid memories of the temporary occupation of the television building in Vilnius, which resulted in the deaths of 14 civilians. “These are my first visual memories. My family lived on the same street where the main base of the Soviet army was located, the so-called “Northern City” (Šiaurės miestelis). I used to watch the tanks maneuver inside the base from the window of my friend’s apartment on the fifth floor.
He continues: “I remember my father leaving to defend Parliament, the fear at home, my mother and grandparents in front of the television and the trembling voice of the presenter who said “they are already inside the building”. Then the television went off. I also remember the next morning, when we went shopping with my grandmother and the sidewalks on the street were broken due to the movement of the columns of tanks. I asked her why the sidewalks are like that and she said, “Russkies, kid.” Russkies,” using a derogatory Lithuanian term for Russians.
Linking the constant threat from Russia during Lithuania’s struggle for independence to the current situation, Kaupinis says: “Lithuanians must “resist by all means.” And don’t ever let this happen again.
An active political commentator in his country, Helmer believes in two-way resistance: “In our current situation [resisting] the outside means military force and the inside means black political technologies disguised as political movements.
“At this very moment, the Lithuanian cultural field is beginning this fight,” he observes. “A pro-Russian political project presenting itself as an ethnocentric populist party is torpedoing our democratic foundation and has just been put in charge of running the Ministry of Culture by the ruling coalition that thinks the Trojan horse can be tamed by letting it enter the city. We consider it the most serious error and we will resist it by all means available!”
Returning to his film, Kaupinis hopes his work, depicting the fragility of democracy, will help audiences “think. People have to draw conclusions for themselves. I hate art as a political tool, but I love when art causes political change.” He also hopes that after viewing the photo, audiences will come away with “a feeling of warmth and hope, a desire to speak to and listen to another human being in this time of division.”
Producer Razgutė, who collaborated with Kaupinis on two of his short films and the famous “Nova Lituania”, says their intention was “to create a film that adds a touch of humor to the somewhat absurd scenarios surrounding Lithuania’s struggle for independence, while recognizing the serious personal dilemmas and historical events involved. In the current context, we think that the film becomes more relevant every day.”
Razgutė also highlighted the director’s visual talent, expressed through the lens of “Nova Lithuania” cinematographer Simonas Glinskis. “While “Nova Lituania” was very stylized, as it captured the interwar years, here Karolis and Simonas decided to represent this world through colors and grain, as the 1990s were a “greyish” era.
Shot entirely in Lithuania in five weeks, the film was co-produced with Czech company Background Films and Latvian company Tasse Film, with support from the Lithuanian Film Center, Eurimages, Creative Europe MEDIA, Czech Film Center, Latvian Film Center and Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT.
Pilot Film will handle the national rollout in the Czech Republic and Baltic Content Media in Latvia. At press time, Razgutė was in discussions for sales in the remaining territories.
