The débuting Lithuanian film director Karolis Kaupinis, who has shown some of his short films at the Prague Short Film Festival in the past, is in the East of the West section at Karlovy Vary presenting his drama Nova Lituania. The hero of this film attempts to implement a utopian plan to save his country whilst facing the gradual disintegration of his own marriage.
It is the year 1938, and a new war is impendent. A geographer, Gruodis, comes up with a quirky solution: he proposes that a "backup Lithuania" be created overseas to which the country's inhabitants could move in the event of danger. The storyline is based on real events, stories that are hard to prove and, at times, even fiction. "The geography professor is based on a real person. Today, he would be 126 years old. He saw something what others could not, in a way fulfilling the myth of the prophet nobody wants to hear," said the director and political science graduate during the discussion after the film.
The young filmmaker attempted to deliver the highest level of factual accuracy, since history is a very sensitive topic for small nations. In response to a question from one viewer he even had a think about what the Lithuanian nation could learn from the film: "We should be more decisive, more black-and-white, rather than tacking somewhere in between. I also realised that Lithuanians love to talk. In my next film, I must restrict that talking."
