R&A Shorts: Animated Baltic Gems

Historically, the Baltic countries are major players in the world of animation, especially considering their small populations. This screening offers a chance to get familiar with a diverse selection from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The viewers are presented with puppet animation, claymation and traditional animation. The topics range from city environments to womanhood, the genres from fiction to documentary.

In Lines of Riga, a beautiful, colourful and quiet city symphony, the city of Riga comes to life. Instead of dialogue, the most important sounds come from the carefully crafted soundscape of the city itself. The sounds centre the residents and architecture of the city, which become larger than life.

With Façade’s two-dimensional comic-style animation, the inner social workings of an apartment block are revealed. The viewer gets to engage in exciting voyeurism reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Rear Window.

The One Who Knows is a sensitive film made with simple colours. Emotions rise to the surface especially when the essence of womanhood is studied through the lens of the pressure to look a certain way.

The beautiful claymation Eating Time is excellent in its use of grayscale colours to set the mood. A complex allegoric grip keeps the viewer engaged in an eating marathon, as the name suggests.

The animated stop-motion documentary Winter in March brings to surface the anxiety that the anti-war Russians experienced when they fled their home country after the war on Ukraine started. The animation technique brings to surface the psychological load and aimlessness of the flight.

Juho Lipponen (translated by Johanna Järvinen)