Feature film, 90min, in Co-Produktion with TREMORA (LT)
written and directed by Ignas Miskinis
development funded by EAVE, MEDIA
production funded by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Eurimages, DFFF, Ministry of Culture of Lithuania
distributor: 3L Filmverleih
World Sales: Media Luna New Films
Awards: Best Actor and Best Film, Silver Crane Film Award
Two men and a woman, brought together for a night by a strange ritual: night driving: aimless cruising by car through the city streets. The journey transforms the cold, constricting city into an undiscovered and unpredictable space full of freedom, closeness, eroticism and hope. LOW LIGHTS is an atmopheric urban road movie, love-story and buddy movie.
After a space of some years, Linas encounters his former school friend Tadas. To enliven the latter’s humdrum life, Linas suggests introducing Tadas to the rituals of the night. At first, Tadas is not enthusiastic about the unexciting evening. But when Linas picks up an unusual woman, Tadas is much too surprised to realise at first that he is actually married to the nocturnal beauty. Vita, too (played by Julia Maria Köhler: also seen in CRAZY ABOUT CLARA & LAURA-OB IHR WOLLT ODER NICHT) in the central female role, goes along with the game: whilst the erotic tension rises, a nocturnal chase begins: pursuing adventures, the moments in which the endless evenings in the void of the cities and suburbs peak in the certainty that, under cover of darkness, you can be master of your own world.
LOW LIGHTS plays almost exclusively by night, in Vilnius (Lithuania) and Cologne. The film provides visual and musical beauty in the tradition of the films of Wong Kar Wai; director Ignas Misknis places the serious and dramatic nucleus of the story in an atmospheric, erotically charged romantic context. Miskinis is Lithuania’s best-known young film-maker, and one of the most important representatives of the new wave of young directors in the Baltic region.
Crew
Directed by: Ignas Miskinis
Written by: Ignas Miskinis
Produced by: Dagmar Niehage | Ieva Norviliene
Executive Producer: Michael P. Aust
DOP: Rolandas Leonavičius
Sound: Saulius Urbanavičius
Music by: Markus Aust
Editing by: Gesa Marten
Production Design: Monika Bauert
Cast
Julia Maria Köhler
Dainius Gavenonis
Jonas Antanelis
Festivals (excerpt)
Karlovy Vary IFF (Competition East of the West), Filmfest Hamburg (Agenda 09), Pusan IFF (World Cinema), Warsaw Film Festival (Competition1,2) Brussels Intl. Independent Film Festival (Competition), Lübeck Film Festival (Competition), Leeds International Film Festival, Sevilla International FF (Competition), Cottbus Film Festival, European Film Festival Segovia, Tallin Black Nights