The historic events? Real. The characters? Inspired by real people. Their motivations? Unclear, or at least partly hidden. This is the world of Lithuanian writer-director Karolis Kaupinis’ new film, the at times absurdist Hunger Strike Breakfastwhich explores the human drivers of collective action. It recently world premiered at the Warsaw Film Festival and screens on Monday night in the Baltic Film Competition lineup of the 29th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF).
Kaupinis’ feature debut Nova Lithuania was the country’s best international feature film Oscar submission in 2021 and dealt with inter-war paranoia, nationalism, and the identity crises of post-Soviet nations.
Hunger Strike Breakfast is set after the January 1991 invasion and occupation of the newly independent Lithuania by Soviet troops and takeover of the Lithuanian Radio & TV headquarters in the country’s capital of Vilnius.
“Thousands of Lithuanians took to the streets to protest against advancing Soviet forces. The invasion was halted, but the soldiers seized the Lithuanian Radio and Television headquarters, leaving 700 employees suddenly out of work,” reads a synopsis for the film. “Just yesterday, Mykolas was a director; today, he is no one. A man of principle, he once slipped fancy food from the TV buffet, but now he wonders whether the games played with freedom were worth it, fearing that the occupiers will remember everyone who dared to speak out. Announcer Daiva, well known and admired, is determined to resist, despite feeling lonely and exhausted. Young actor Sigis is eager to help, though he worries the noise might wake his newborn child.”
Ineta Stasiulytė stars as Daiva, Arvydas Dapsys as Mykolas, and Paulius Pinigis as Sigis. The movie also features Albinas Keleris, Aleksas Kazanavičius, and Eglė Mikulionytė. Marija Razgutė of Lithuania’s M-Films (The Visitor) produced Hunger Strike Breakfastwith the Czech Republic’s Background Films and Latvia’s Tasse Film co-producing. Alief is handling sales on the film.
“In the darkest moments, people long for a hug or a simple conversation – about feelings, pain, hopes, dreams – even when the future remains uncertain,” the PÖFF website says about the film.
At the Tallinn festival, Kaupinis, who graduated from Vilnius University with an MA in Comparative Politics and worked as a presenter and editor of a weekly political TV program before he started writing and directing films, talked to THR about Hunger Strike Breakfasthis political protest work in Lithuania, and how his exploration of the Soviet invasion of Lithuania is timely given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The night of Jan. 13, 1991 [when Soviet troops invaded Lithuania] is one of the first memories I visually remember, because I was four years old, and I remember certain details very vividly,” Kaupinis told THR.
While he was working in TV, some of the people who worked there in 1991. “They told me stories, and I got to know about this hunger strike they did from my colleagues during smoke breaks,” the filmmaker explained. “It was a bit ironic due to the fact that it [went of for] so long, from March to August. You. You cannot be on a hunger strike for that long. And they were like, ‘Yeah, we were taking rotations.’ For three days, three people would strike, then three others for three days. And they told me that there was a whole list of 100, 200 people who were rotating.”
‘Hunger Strike Breakfast’
Courtesy of PÖFF
Kaupinis also discovered other surprising things. “Whenever you would ask them why they did that, when you would ask them personally about their motivation, initially, they would talk about freedom and independence for Lithuania and other political things,” he told THR. “But if you went deeper in a discussion, then suddenly these deep-down, personal motivations would appear. For example, someone just wanted to spend time with a colleague whom they liked and didn’t have a legitimate possibility to do so otherwise. And some just had a miserable life at home and just wanted some place and reason to get out.”
Concluded the writer-director: “So underneath these political things, there were always these miseries, hidden secrets, longings. It was also a symbol of this occupation, of this colonization of the mind where you cannot say what you feel, where you cannot say what you actually are longing for.”
You may wonder if and how the historic invasion of Lithuania, which didn’t succeed, may have parallels with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “I came up with this idea when the Ukrainian war started,” recalled Kaupinis. “I thought it’s a metaphor for what we ourselves, as Lithuanian and Baltic societies, have found ourselves in. You have a TV headquarters[in[inHunger Strike Breakfast]where everything is being destroyed. That is Ukraine. On the other side of the street, you have this apartment building, which is a bit indifferent towards what’s happening. That’s a bit like Western Europe. And then we have this trailer [put up for the strike]this thing that feels temporary because it can be taken over by the guys from the TV headquarters side, and it’s not really being very much supported by the people from the apartment building. So it’s like Baltic societies that are in waiting, waiting for Godot, but wanting to do something meaningful, with limited capacity to do that.”
Kaupinis’ original idea was to make a film about the propaganda channel that the Soviets tried to turn Lithuanian TV into, which failed because the latter changed its operations center to another city, Kaunas. “I wrote a whole script about that and analyzed a Lithuanian collaborator, who was the chief of this propaganda TV channel,” he said. “But after the [invasion of Ukraine] started, I was more interested in what’s happening” to the people who went on strike.
Given he talked to the people who were actually on strike, Kaupinis shared that his characters were inspired by the various insights he collected. For example, “Daiva is actually a fusion of two ladies,” he explained.
Kaupinis and other creatives have not so much gone on hunger strike but attended protests against Lithuania’s current ruling coalition, led by the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party that also includes the Union of Democrats “For Lithuania” and the far-right, pro-Russia Nemunas Dawn Party, which has been attacking creatives and cultural institutions, among other things. “We very clearly see Moscow’s hand in it,” the director warned.
What’s next for Kaupinis? “My next film that I’m planning shall be about a monastery in provincial Lithuania as a small [representation of our] world where people are very divided and cannot find a common denominator anymore,” he told THR. “I started digging into this, and I have spoken with a lot of priests, and they told me it’s just the same as society, just in a different circle. Why do you expect the church to be different?!”
