10/10/2011

The Kaunas International Film Festival (KIFF) came to a close this weekend in the eponymous town in Lithuania.

The fifth edition of the festival featured several local documentaries and short and medium-length works, as well as works from the other Baltic countries, Estonia and neighbouring Latvia, that included both documentary and fiction works.

One of the two Estonian features presented in Kaunas was A Friend of Mine, from writer and screenwriter Mart Kivastik, for whom this is the feature debut after several shorts and some work for Estonian television.

Kivastik wrote the film himself, and the screenplay was partially developed at the 3rd edition of ScripTeast, with the help and advice of Dutch writer-director George Sluizer (The Vanishing) and British screenwriter Phil Hughes (Thunderpants). Tom Abrams was attached as the project’s Head of Studies.

A Friend of Mine is an intimate character study of two lonely and old men who both love books. 70-year-old Mati (an impressively grumpy Aarne Üksküla) loses the will to live after the death of his wife. Even his beloved novels can’t seem to console him.

Things start to change when a crazy character, Sass (Aleksander Eelmaa), checks out some Tolstoy from the library where Mati works. This 60-year-old vagabond also loves books and literature.

Their relationship (and the impact it has on their small group of surrounding friends) slowly blossoms in scenes of well-observed authenticity.

The film was shot on a low budget, under €400,000, and with backing from the Estonian Film Foundation and the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Exit Film produced the feature and also distributed the film locally, where it was released in January. The film was also screened at the Berlin Film Festival market and at the recent Hamburg Film Festival.