The first feature-length film by Lithuanian director Karolis Kaupinis, Nova Lituania, 2019. The film was based on the idea of geographer Kazis Pakstas, who actually lived in Lithuania, who at one time proposed to create a “Reserve Lithuania” (Atsarginė Lietuva) or “Dausuva” (Dausuva). He believed that the small Lithuania between Russia
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The first feature-length film by Lithuanian director Karolis Kaupinis, Nova Lituania, 2019. The film was based on the idea of geographer Kazis Pakstas, who actually lived in Lithuania, who at one time proposed to create a “Reserve Lithuania” (Atsarginė Lietuva) or “Dausuva” (Dausuva). He believed that the small Lithuania between Russia and Germany, with the area where Vilnius was still selected by Poland, would sooner or later be absorbed by these large states and the people would be assimilated. Therefore, he proposed to create a reserve Lithuania by buying land on some other continent, several options were considered - Quebec, São Paulo, Angola, Venezuela, Honduras, Madagascar, in the end he stopped in the Bahamas, where he proposed to send a regulated flow of migrants, creating a full-fledged colony of Lithuanians there, but the project did not receive support from the government and was not implemented. And then the Germans captured Klaipeda, and the USSR also sent its troops, the war was approaching. What I love about this film is that what I talk about all the time is that the author took a real idea, but didn’t make a biopic, but made his own film about it, changing the names of the characters and certainly changing their lives, we don’t think about how it really was, hardly exactly how it was shown in the film. In the film, the main character Felixas Gruodis (Alexas Kazanavičius) is also a professor at the university, also teaches geography and also promotes the idea of Reserve Lithuania. He rushes around with his idea, stubbornly trying to interest people, but manages to interest only the former prime minister, with whom they seem to have even become friends. But both his idea and his family life fail. The actors in the film are well selected and play well, especially Kazanavičius. The film is black and white, and, as I found out from an interview with the director, they simply did not have money on color, but in this case this option is quite justified.
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