Eitvydas Doškus is a cameraman and film director who has contributed to many Lithuanian films, including “Peace to Us in Our Dreams”, “Twittering Soul”, “A Feature Film About Life“ and others. His documentary “Once Upon a Vilnius” received the “Silver Crane” national award in 2023. We talked with Doškus about the diversity of cinema, the city of Vilnius where he firmly belongs now, and the documentary genre.
What were your first steps in the film industry? Did you know you would be in the cinema as a child/youth, or was it all by chance?
After school, I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do. My Lithuanian teacher suggested I could study at the Lithuanian Music and Theater Academy, to be precise, film directing. At that time this study program was offered every 4 years. The year I joined, they were putting together a group of future cameramen. I decided I wanted to give it a try.
My internship in Paris at an experimental film studio at the beginning of my studies had a huge influence on me. I got acquainted with a completely different kind of cinema there, so when I returned to Lithuania, I started shooting on 16 mm with like-minded people. We developed the films independently and held workshops, and I realized that cinema could be very diverse.
Do you remember your first project? How have you changed over the years as an artist (your approach to cinema, projects, work culture, and results), and how has the film industry changed?
There were many different projects, and while still at the Academy, I directed several short films. My first significant project was Šarūnas Bartas’ film “Peace to Us in Our Dreams”, which took several years to shoot. I learned a lot thanks to all those projects, and all that experience changed my attitude. It inspired new ideas. I think today film production has accelerated, everything is happening much faster. I worry about auteur cinema, which does not pay off very well today. I fear it will become even more niche.
What has cinema taught you?
Cinema taught me that you need to keep striving towards the goal you’ve set for yourself without giving up, even when you fail, which is not easy. I believe curiosity, the desire to learn new things, and authenticity are very important. Each project and every artist I work with brings something unique and guides me towards my next step. It’s interesting how eventually you spot certain recurrent themes in your work that you didn’t consciously aim for. I have told myself I will shoot only good films, but I have not yet figured out what a good film is.
Your film “Once Upon a Vilnius” received the “Silver Crane” award in 2023. How and why did you decide to make this documentary? What makes the documentary genre interesting, and attractive and why are you fond of it?
I have always been fascinated by films about cities, like “Man with a Movie Camera” or “Berlin: Symphony of Metropolis” and more modern ones such as “Samsara”, and “Koyaanisqatsi”. Back at the time of my studies, I already entertained the idea of making a similar film. I lived outside the city, so when I moved to Vilnius I found the city very interesting. Vilnius was where I went to the cinema for the first time.
The city is very cinematic and can be shown from many different angles. I enjoyed shooting “Once Upon a Vilnius”. I was usually alone with the camera. The complexity started in the editing, when I had to put the film on a certain shelf, to select the material. In documentaries, I am fascinated by coincidences, sometimes you can capture what you did not originally plan, something that inevitably disappears.
In your opinion, how is the Lithuanian film industry developing, and where are we moving towards? What would you like to wish for our filmmakers and Lithuanian cinema?
I think Lithuanian cinema is now growing rapidly, new artists are emerging with new ideas, and their unique styles. I would like Lithuanian films to be seen by the largest possible audience in Lithuania as well as abroad. I’m not only talking about festivals, I also mean movie theaters.
Thank you for the conversation.
