Akiplėša (toxic) is the debut feature film by Lithuanian director Saulė Bliuvaitė, and it had its world premiere in the international competition of the Locarno Film Festival on Thursday.
The young designer also wrote the coming-of-age drama inspired by her own experiences. It tells the story of 13-year-old Maria, abandoned by her mother and forced to live with her grandmother in a harsh industrial town where she meets Kristina, who wants to become a model.
“To get closer to her, Maria enrolls in a mysterious modeling school, where the girls prepare for the biggest casting in the region,” the film’s description reads. “Her ambiguous relationship with Kristina and the intense, sectarian atmosphere of the modeling school push Maria to discover her own identity.”
The film is part of a strong presence of Lithuanian cinema at the 77th edition of the Swiss festival, which presents an eclectic program and honors big names from around the world, including New Zealand director Jane Campion.
Bliuvaite spoke to THR about her first feature film, her exploration of the human body, her own experiences with the world of modeling competitions, why she loves American and Greek films, and what might lie ahead.
I am sorry to say that I do not speak a single word of Lithuanian, but I am curious to know the title of your film in Lithuanian and English. Is the meaning the same?
Actually, this Lithuanian word is not translatable. Its meaning is different from “toxic”. It means an absolutely shameless person who could literally rip your eyes out. When I was a child, you would do crazy things in the yard and an old lady would come out and call you “akiplėša”.
How did the idea for the film come about and what inspired you to write and direct this story?
One source was a movie I saw, a 2011 documentary called Girl modelThe directors are David Redmon and Ashley Sabin. I watched the film by chance. It shows how models are scouted in Russia, how recruiters from Western Europe take the Trans-Siberian Railway to these remote places looking for models, and they hold these huge castings where hundreds, thousands of girls participate. This film explores this system of taking girls from villages and bringing them to work in Japan or other countries. So it’s presented in a very sad way.
In a way, I realized that I saw myself in this film – very pale girls, very, very young. And I remember that I started to associate these scenes, this atmosphere with my own experiences when I was 13. I really wanted to be a model. I think it was a trend at the time, in 2008. It was really a trend, especially in the Baltics. People would go and look for these very thin little girls, and there were many agencies and castings. We would go there all the time. I remember these long lines of girls who…
