Podnieks on Podnieks is the story of a phenomenally influential Latvian documentarian who is remembered by relatively few today, but whose work was once seen by more than 40 million people in the former Soviet Union. The film was shown last week in Jiglav International Airport Documentary Film Festival.
What Juris PodnieksFilms that depicted what he called “the death of the monster,” as the director called the final days of the Soviet Union, were seen by anyone were something of a miracle. The likely reason for this was that he was working at the time he lived, says Anna Viduleja, who ran Podnieks on Podnieks together with Antra Cilinska, the former editor of Podnieks.
In fact, Podnieks, who died under mysterious circumstances in 1992, captured the world's attention with his relentless need to “be there” during the events that marked the end of the Cold War.
The BBC turned to him for reports on uprisings in his native Latvia, in which protesters fought Moscow-backed armies, sometimes with deadly results. Podnieks himself witnessed his cameraman receive a fatal blow while the team was recording events on the streets of Riga in 1992. Another colleague died later from injuries sustained by the military trying to suppress mass choirs singing songs banned by the Soviet Union that Podnieks included in his film “Motherland.”
But in Podnieks's country he was celebrated and respected as a rare source of truth and courageous reporting on a world that was rapidly changing.
“Podnieks on Podnieks” reveals the thoughts, experiences and aspirations of this remarkable figure, using personal diaries, photographs and film footage, presenting what Viduleja calls the life path of a director who reflects on his obsessions, but cannot control them.
According to Viduleya, when the film was being conceived, the discovery of the director's personal diaries was a breakthrough moment.
“After I was invited to the project by Antra Cilinska, director, producer and head of the JPS studio – Juris Podnieks,” she recalls, “I found the Latvian magazine Kino Raksti from 2000, which contained an excerpt from Juris Podnieks’ diary from 1975.”
“In these pages were his passion for his creative work, precise details of filmmaking at the Riga Documentary Film Studio, as well as his kind attitude towards the newlyweds and personal hopes.”
Podniek's story, given his own thoughts, “seemed like the answer,” she said.
“I looked at the shelf above and at the books: Fellini on Fellini, Bergman on Bergman, Kieślowski on Kieślowski, Cassavetes on Cassavetes… so Podnieks on Podnieks seemed like an appropriate title.”
According to Viduleja, at first the directing duo only had excerpts from the diary that the magazine used, “but then Podnieks’ diaries began to appear one after another while we were working with specific materials from the film archive. It was as if Juris was watching us from the edge of a cloud and asking: “Do you want my thoughts on the making of Strelnieku zvaigznais (Constellation of Shooters)?”
And new pages of the diary open.
They found detailed notes, written during the filming of the film, about the last Latvian rifle units, as well as about soldiers of Lenin's Praetorian Guard.
— Or later, when we researched materials about how Podnieks made a film about the post-war generation of sculptors: “Sisyphus, Rolling the Stone.” Or his most expensive film, “Is It Easy to Be Young?”
Each time, someone who was close to Podnieks shared new diaries of the director with Vidulya and Tsilinska.
The latest film was based on the confessions of young people living in Latvia, who openly spoke about patronizing teachers and parents, worries about the future and fears about the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The 1986 film also included accounts of former conscripts who were forced to participate in the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, which clearly showed the hopelessness and brutality of the war, in stark contrast to the Kremlin's version of a war of progress and purpose.
If “Is it Easy” had been released even a few months earlier, it most likely would have been banned, says Viduleja. Instead, “the political changes initiated by Gorbachev gave this film a chance to appear on the screen, and after that it was impossible to stop it.”
“Juris’s cousin Inara Zeltiņa provided us with her diaries, revealing the goals he set for himself in the process of creating honest relationships with the younger generation depicted in the film.”
In 1978, Podnieks wrote in a letter to his colleague: “Perhaps it is my arrogance to say that I will come and tell the whole truth with my eye and head, but I am determined to do it!”
“Podniek’s ability to understand the broader political and social processes taking place in society,” says Viduleja, “combined with his sincere and deep interest in the life of the person he was talking to, is the reason that his film was understood and appreciated by tens of millions of Soviet people.”
