27/06/2008

The Lithuanian film Loss by Maris Martinsons won Best Director and Best Music (Andrius Mamontovas) at the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), which ended last Sunday.

“Loss is the first Lithuanian feature film in years which has won in the competition section of such a high level festival,” said producer Linda Krukle. It is great that it can represent Lithuanian culture worldwide, although unfortunately it didn’t receive any state support and was the first Lithuanian film financed by private means.”

“For Maris Martinsons and composer/actor Andrius Mamontovas, this is the first time ever that they receive such a prestigious award. It made them feel that their creative [path] is the right one. As for me, the awards will help present the film to international distributors,” added Krukle.

Set in Lithuania and Ireland, Loss portrays the lives of six different characters connected by a terrible accident that occurred 25 years ago. The drama deals with major issues such as adoption, alcoholism and emigration. Local rock star Mamontovas makes his first screen appearance in the film.

This is the second film for Latvian-born Martinsons, following Anastasia, which screened at the Montreal World Film Festival in 2006. Loss was produced by Krukle for her company ART&A (established in Vilnius in 2006), in co-production with the Lithuanian Film Studios.

Released earlier in the year, Loss had a record opening weekend for a Lithuanian film and has garnered almost 50,000 admissions at home. In comparison, similar films such as Crash and Babel amassed, respectively, 5,696 and 14,516 admissions.

During SIFF, Krukle was approached by other festival programmers (including Canada, and Germany) and received proposals for worldwide distribution.