Hot Lithuanian producer Maria Razgute M-FilmsThe author of the award-winning films Slow at Sundance 2023 and The Visitor at Carlsbad this year has unveiled a teaser trailer for Karolis Kaupinis' absurdist drama Hunger Strike Breakfast.
Helmer's sophomore feature following his signature debut New Lithuania, Lithuania's selection for the 2021 Academy Awards, makes its world premiere in competition at the Warsaw Film Festival today and will screen nationally in January 2026 via CinemaAds.
In the video, one of the characters, Sigitas Bickus (Paulus Pinigis), quotes American alternative food guru Paul Bragg's book The Miracle of Fasting, saying that “hunger cures all ills” to a small group of television journalists who are about to go on a hunger strike to protest the occupation of their television station by Russian troops. As in A New Lithuania, Helmer twists real events and tense geopolitics to convey a deeply humanistic 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 employees went on a hunger strike to demand the return of the national television building from the Soviet army.
In the film, we follow Lithuanian TV star Daiva (Ineta Stasulite) as she loses her job when the TV studios are seized by Russian soldiers. Along with several colleagues, including his television boss (Arvydas Dapshis) and a compassionate local resident (Paulius Pinigis), Daiwa begins a hunger strike in a small trailer opposite the television station. Besides political motives, the group strives for human warmth and connection.
Kaupinis, who came up with the characters after numerous interviews with real strikers, says: “At first glance it was a political struggle, but the motive for it was a long-suppressed feeling of loneliness, guilt, the desire for something big, important, beautiful and warm.”
Helmer, a former broadcaster and editor of a weekly current affairs program, explains that talking about those events with senior colleagues on television at the time piqued his interest. “During the pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine, it seemed like an appropriate metaphor for my current Lithuanian society – a tiny makeshift trailer, 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 become closer to people who share a common destiny.” Although he was only five years old in 1991, Kaupinis still vividly remembers the temporary occupation of the television building in Vilnius, which ended with the death of 14 civilians. “These are my first visual memories. My family lived on the same street where the main base of the Soviet Army, the so-called “Northern City” (Šiaurės miestelis), was located. I watched the tanks maneuvering 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 TV and the trembling voice of the presenter that “they are already inside the building.” Then the television went off. I also remember the next morning, when my grandmother and I went to buy groceries and the sidewalks on the street were destroyed by the movement of tank columns. I asked her why the sidewalks were like that and she said, “Russians, baby. Russians,” using a Lithuanian derogatory word for Russians.
Linking the constant threat from Russia during Lithuania's struggle for independence to the present time, Kaupinis says: “Lithuanians must “resist by all means.” And don't ever let that happen again.”
An active political observer at home, Helmer believes in bipartisan resistance: “In our current situation [resisting] “Outside” means military force, and “inside” means black political technologies under the guise of political movements.”
“It is at this moment that the Lithuanian cultural field begins this struggle,” he notes. “A pro-Russian political project posing as an ethnocentric populist party is undermining our democratic foundation and has just been appointed to lead the Ministry of Culture by a ruling coalition that thinks it can tame the Trojan horse by letting it into the city. We view this as a grave mistake and will resist it with all means available!”
Returning to his film, Kaupinis hopes that his work, which depicts the fragility of democracy, will help viewers “think. People have to come to their own conclusions. I hate art as a political tool, but I like it when art causes political change.” He also wants viewers to feel a sense of warmth and hope after viewing the photo, a desire to talk to another person and listen in this time of discord.
Producer Razgute, who worked with Kaupinis on two of his short films and the acclaimed New Lithuania, says their intention was to “create a film that adds a touch of humor to the somewhat absurd scenarios associated with Lithuania's struggle for independence, but also acknowledges the serious personal dilemmas and related historical events. In the current climate, we feel that the film is becoming increasingly more relevant every day.” day.”
Razgute also emphasized the director's visual talent, expressed through the prism of New Lithuania cinematographer Simonas Glinskis. “Although New Lithuania was highly stylized as it captured the inter-war years, here Karolis and Simonas chose to depict that world through color and texture, as the 1990s were a gray time.”
Shot entirely in Lithuania in five weeks, the film was co-produced with the Czech Republic. Background movies and the Latvian Tasse Film with the support of the Lithuanian Film Center, Eurimages, Creative Europe MEDIA, the Czech Film Center, the Latvian Film Center and the Lithuanian publishing house LRT.
Pilot Film will handle national distribution in the Czech Republic and Baltic Content Media in Latvia. At the time of publication, Razgute was negotiating a sale in the remaining territories.
