04/09/2003 - The Latvian director Laila Pakalnina presents us with a bizarre tale based on a true story: a python that created panic in a school

Her training in documentaries has left a deep impact on the work of Laila Pakalnina, whose second feature length film The Python is in competition at Venice.
The Latvian director, who graduated at the Moscow Film Institute, tells this bizarre story inspired by a real-life event: an incident that shatters the calm routine of a school, and which is made even worse when a python, left unattended, gets lost in the building.
There are actually two snakes at the centre of the story, a real one and a metaphorical one, namely the headmistress of the school. It is all told with a dose of original Baltic humour.

The film features a lot of camera movements, with the use of long shots and dollies that are the hallmark of this director’s style: "The world shown inside the shot is much more than the image you see. I like to think of life happening outside the image, beyond the frame".
The budget of €400,000 also had a bearing on this choice. The financing was organised by Pakalnina herself and the funding came from the Company Hargla, and the Latvian National Cinematographic Centre: "I didn’t find any other way to produce the film, I only had funding available for a small project, and I couldn’t afford to use an external production company" adds the director, "it’s difficult to produce films in Latvia, you can’t use Dolby, and you have to continually resort to using equipment from outside. We went to Prague for the post-production, but we had to drastically cut back our time there, because we didn’t want to have to make big reductions in our collaborators’ salaries".
"Luckily", she says smiling, "it was really sunny when we were shooting. The region is usually rain-soaked, and as a result, many of the local inhabitants have asked us to come back to work there!".

(Translated from Italian)