12/07/2024 - The Venice Orizzonti winner’s new effort, starring Gelminė Glemžaitė, Paulius Markevičius, Agnė Kaktaitė and Giedrius Kiela, began as a way for the helmer to work through a near-tragic experience

Paulius Markevičius (left) and Giedrius Kiela in Drowning Dry (© Laurynas Bareiša)

After winning Venice’s Orizzonti competition with Pilgrims [+see also:
film review
interview: Laurynas Bareisa
film profile] in 2021, Lithuanian helmer Laurynas Bareiša will present his sophomore feature, a drama titled Drowning Dry [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laurynas Bareiša
film profile], in the international competition of the Locarno Film Festival (see the news). The Swiss gathering unspools this year from 7-17 August.

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Bareiša is also active as a DoP – some of his most notable works in this role include Marija Kavtaradze’s Summer Survivors [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marija Kavtaradzė
film profile] (2018) and Slow [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marija Kavtaradze
film profile] (2023). Moreover, he directed the shorts By the Pool (which bowed at Venice in 2017), Caucasus (Locarno 2018) and Dummy (Berlinale 2020).

“To celebrate Lukas’s victory at the martial-arts tournament and Tomas’s birthday party, two sisters organise a weekend at their country house. With their kids, they go swimming in a nearby lake, relax and discuss family finances. After a near-tragic accident involving one of the children, the sisters become single mothers,” reads the 88-minute feature’s official synopsis.

“Dry drowning, or secondary drowning, is a rare drowning complication that happens if water gets into the lungs. A small amount of water can irritate the lungs’ lining, and fluid can build up, causing a condition called pulmonary edema,” says Bareiša in his director’s notes.

“This condition is important not only as a plot device in the film, but also as the basis for the whole structure of the story. The concept of this perverse iteration of escaping drowning in the water and then experiencing drowning on dry land connected with me personally,” he further explains, adding how a couple of years ago, he had to “resuscitate” his two-year-old son, an incident that prompted “increased anxiety and panic attacks”.

“Working through this experience was the beginning of this project. The whole incident could not have taken more than one minute, even though the sight I remember the best is the blue, stiff face of my kid. Fortunately, everything ended well and with no further complications.”

Zooming in on his directorial approach, he adds: “I also wanted to extend this method of merging theme-inspired practices with filmmaking techniques to encompass the framing and staging of the film. I shot the movie from stationary positions, but not in static shots, preferring long takes and free-panning camera movement on a tripod to mimic a person being present, but not being involved in the action. As if you were remembering an experience over and over in your mind when you have the necessary distance to linger and are not obliged to move in sync with the events.”

The main cast includes Gelminė Glemžaitė (The Saint [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andrius Blazevicius
film profile]), Paulius Markevičius (Pilgrims, The Poet [+see also:
trailer
interview: Giedrius Tamoševičius
film profile], Summer Survivors), Giedrius Kiela (Pilgrims) and theatre actress Agnė Kaktaitė. Meanwhile, some of the key crew members are production designer Sigita Šimkūnaitė, editor Silvija Vilkaitė, sound designer Julius Grigelionis, costume designer Laura Kraukle, and make-up artists Beata Rjabovska and Ieva Sebre. Bareiša lensed the picture himself.

Drowning Dry is being produced by Klementina Remeikaité for Lithuania’s afterschool and co-produced by Matīss Kaža for Latvia’s Trickster Pictures. The feature has received backing from Eurimages, the Lithuanian Film Centre, the National Film Centre of Latvia and pubcaster LRT.

Paris-based firm Alpha Violet is selling it worldwide.