Cineuropa caught up with acclaimed Latvian filmmaker Laila Pakalnina in the editing room during post-production of her next film, but the conversation mostly revolved around her latest meditative documentary Termini [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Laila Pakalnina
fiche film], which captures the beauty in the mundanity of everyday commuting. The film was presented earlier in October at the Riga International Film Festival, and is currently showing within the Opus Bonum Competition of the 28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival.

Cineuropa: You were focusing on means of transportation in The Bus (2004) and Homes [+lire aussi :
critique
fiche film] (2021) as well. In this sense, is Termini wrapping up a sort of trilogy?
Laila Pakalnina: Not really. The trilogy concept actually came from the synopsis for the Riga International Film Festival as the opinion of a film critic. They sent it to me and I approved it, but the truth is that if I had intended it as a trilogy, I’d have combined other films. These films altogether were never planned as a trilogy. My idea was more to reflect on transportation itself. Indeed, I do it in The Bus but also in my early short called Ferry.

What drew you to transportation as a theme?
It’s not the means of transportation that interest me; it’s life and people. I became intrigued by observing people in transit and the places where buses turn around. This image of a bus turning felt like a camera turn as well, capturing people and locations in a circular movement.

I enjoy observing people and the surroundings without focusing on anything in particular. It’s like turning around and just watching what unfolds. In documentary work, my shots are usually static, so this movement was a new challenge. I wanted the camera to capture the surroundings as a human would—at the same rhythm, not slowing down or speeding up based on expectation. The challenging part was that it had to look natural, not robotic. You don’t linger on any specific moment but move on, letting the camera capture whatever comes into view.

This circular motion creates a hypnotic effect, but I was wondering what your concept behind it was.
The hypnotic effect was part of the goal. It also creates a sense of continuity, like the cycle of daily life, independent of seasons. We filmed all year but didn’t arrange the scenes by season, as it wasn’t about the seasonal change but the endless cycle of everyday routines.

How did you keep people looking so natural? Was it difficult, given the constant camera movement?
Surprisingly, people didn’t notice the camera much, especially early in the morning when they were still half-asleep. Today, people are used to cameras everywhere. I think many people even prefer being filmed with a professional camera rather than a mobile phone, as the latter can imply casual surveillance or judgment.

Did anyone ask why you were filming?
Only a few people from the small offices at some bus stops approached us. I told them honestly that we were making a film about Riga, which was true and seemed to satisfy them. The film is capturing a slice of Riga as it is now, so in 10 or 20 years, these scenes might serve as an ethnographic record.

How much footage did you shoot, and how did you handle editing?
It’s hard to measure footage now in hours since digital storage is measured in gigabytes. We filmed throughout the year but only captured scenes when something meaningful was happening. Editing in documentaries is like writing a poem, it’s intuitive. I knew how I wanted to start, and then we played with the material until it took shape.

Before the interview you mentioned that you are now working on another documentary called Scarecrow, featuring birds around an airport. Is it similar in its observational approach to Termini?
Not exactly. Scarecrow is about nature and situations rather than people in transit, so the editing felt different. We’re currently finishing it and composers from Lithuania just sent us music today. It’s a proposal, not the final version, but what’s fascinating is that they actually created a new instrument to record it. They physically glued a piano and a guitar to each other and it looks crazy: one pedal is made from a strange wooden toy! Originally, we planned to finish editing before adding music, but I was so curious about this sound. It’s very musical—nothing like techno or anything overly electronic. I expect to have the film ready by next year.

And what about your fiction film coming up?
It’s called Cat on My Mind. My cameraman found exposed photo negatives from the 1960s to the 1980s. We scanned them, and they were so impressive that we decided to create a fiction film imagining the moments before and after each photo.