While Kino Pavasaris is well-known across the European arthouse cinema sphere for its film festival, the largest cinematic event in Lithuania, its distribution arm also brings world-class works to theatres all across the Baltics. For our Distributor of the Month column, we spoke with Dovilė Grigaliūnaitė, head of programme and acquisitions for Kino Pavasaris Distribution, to examine the interconnectedness of the company’s joint festival-distribution-exhibition model, working across three different countries and the importance of including emerging local talent alongside recognised auteurs on its slate.

Cineuropa: Could you begin by explaining your business model and editorial policy?
Dovilė Grigaliūnaitė: We deal with small and big arthouse films but also documentaries and animation. The distribution branch of Kino Pavasaris has been growing quite rapidly over the past few years. In the beginning, it was a film festival, and this year we celebrated our 30th anniversary with more than 135,000 admissions. We work with the film festival and in distribution, and we just became exhibitors – we merged with an arthouse film theatre in Vilnius called Pasaka, meaning “fairytale”, which has two locations. Everything grows out from the film festival, which is the second biggest film festival in the Baltic region, so it [informs] the business model we have and the strategy for acquiring our films for distribution. Most of our films start on the festival circuit. This year, we had something like 24 titles start their life cycle during the film festival – after that, they go to theatrical distribution, VOD platforms and so on. This model we use for distribution really works for us because it helps elevate audience interest in arthouse titles, also for new directors. Sometimes, if we have a newcomer whom nobody knows about but we really believe in them, it will be harder for the film to get the attention of audiences without the festival.

How many films do you acquire per year, and at what stages?
We acquire around 30 films per year, and some films we acquire even two years before release. We have started to buy films at earlier and earlier stages, many of them from script because our market is very competitive. There are other film distributors who are working with arthouse titles in the country and region, and Lithuania falls into multi-territory deals. Most of the time when we acquire, we acquire rights for the full Baltics region, but Lithuania still sometimes falls into deals with Scandinavia. Sometimes the rights are even sold with Russia, which we are trying to fight, but it’s still happening, like with Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron. Selling Baltic rights to an aggressor state is harmful to the film industry, where it's possible that a film won't even be screened in Lithuania at all. Because there’s a lot of competition, we need to try to buy it as soon as possible. One example of a film that we will release next year is Sentimental Value [+lire aussi :
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interview : Joachim Trier
fiche film] by Joachim Trier – we bought it two years ago, or maybe earlier. However, it is not just films by celebrated directors: we also read scripts and buy debut features from script if we find that it’s something special, unique or a new voice of cinema we want to bring to our countries and to support.

You distribute across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – how do you work across these territories?
While our company is in Lithuania, we have our representatives in Latvia and Estonia. Even though these are small countries, they are very different – with different languages and different tastes – which makes it really important for us to have local people who know how their audiences might react. In Latvia and Estonia, there are some titles we resell to our partners, but we have been distributing by ourselves in these territories for two years.

What have been your success stories from this year?
We were very happy because we had Flow [+lire aussi :
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interview : Gints Zilbalodis
interview : Tapis rouge @ European Fil…
fiche film] by Gints Zilbalodis and it was very successful. We were distributing it only in Lithuania and had around 60,000 admissions after the festival. We didn’t have the rights to distribute it in Latvia because it’s a Latvian film, but we resold the rights to Estonia, and they reached similar numbers. We also bought the film before the premiere as we knew this was what we lacked with our lineup. We distributed Babygirl in all three countries, with the box office reaching €922,000 and 118,000 admissions. It was the most successful film we’ve had in the history of our distribution. Compared to other films, the theatres were really engaged – they had a lot of initiatives that they started, and we worked with them from there.

Are there examples where the distribution of a film has varied significantly, either in strategy or box office success, from country to country?
Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] worked well in Lithuania but less so in Latvia and Estonia, although I’m not really sure the reason why. However, it is important to include films in our lineup that evoke conversation and bring up socially or politically difficult questions. Borders are a difficult issue for us in Lithuania as we have the same issue depicted in the film. We think about the values that our films are bringing – for instance, we acquire a lot of LGBTQ+ titles, and there is a scope of cultures and nationalities in our lineup. We think about films that could change your opinion – we seek brave visions and expression. We know that some of our films won’t bring the money back, but we want them also as prestige or if they are by directors we really like. Every year we will have a few Lithuanian titles, and most of them are debuts. We had Toxic [+lire aussi :
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interview : Directors Talks @ European…
interview : Saulė Bliuvaitė
fiche film] by Saulė Bliuvaitė and Slow [+lire aussi :
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interview : Marija Kavtaradze
fiche film] by Marija Kavtaradzė, as well as her previous film Summer Survivors [+lire aussi :
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interview : Marija Kavtaradzė
fiche film] and Laurynas Bareiša’s Pilgrims [+lire aussi :
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interview : Laurynas Bareisa
fiche film]. We will distribute The Visitor [+lire aussi :
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interview : Vytautas Katkus
interview : Vytautas Katkus
fiche film] by Vytautas Katkus, who won Best Director at Karlovy Vary, and Renovation [+lire aussi :
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interview : Gabrielė Urbonaitė
fiche film] by Gabrielė Urbonaitė. It’s always harder to work with national titles because we work closely with directors and producers throughout the process of distributing. It doesn’t mean it’s not rewarding, but it’s simply more demanding.

Where is Kino Pavasaris Distribution headed next, and what are you looking forward to in your lineup?
We have the one theatre, Pasaka, in two locations, but our future plan is to have more theatres if possible. If we think about lineup, we will try to also grow it and try to acquire bigger arthouse titles while still sticking to the same logic of supporting newcomers. For next year’s slate, we have acquired seven titles from the main competition of this year’s Cannes – the one I can mention now is Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident [+lire aussi :
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fiche film]. We also have Paolo Sorrentino’s upcoming [Venice opener] La grazia, The Drama by Kristoffer Borgli starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, and Tomas Vengris’ Barracuda, a true crime story set in Lithuania in the 1990s, which we have been working on from the very beginning, before the film started shooting.