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LITHUANIA emerging talent
Lithuania is considered a fantastic base for period pieces due to an array of historical neighbourhoods and a film friendly attitude. An ever-increasing number of productions have arrived since the implementation of the tax incentive scheme, which is being increased further in 2019.
ossibilities for outdoor shooting in Lithuania are endless. Productions can make use of over 22,000 rivers and 3000 lakes, coastal areas on the Baltic sea, four UNESCO world heritage sites and five national parks containing both dense forests and open marshlands. The capital Vilnius has a historic medieval old town as well as Baroque facades and Renaissance architecture.
As such, Lithuania holds favour as a location for period pieces. Vilnius, the capital and centre of production, has hosted multiple productions focusing on Russian history and culture such as Sky and HBO’s Catherine the Great which is currently shooting in Russia, Latvia and Lithuania. The four-part mini-series stars Helen Mirren as Catherine, who served as Empress of Russia between 1762 and 1796. “stArting from Productions are drawn to the many 2019, up to 30% corners of Vilnius which retain a of budgets cAn historic authenticity that Russian neighbourhoods are too modernibe sAved through sed to provide.
the country’s incentive scheme.”
The BBC’s high-end miniseries War and Peace based itself in Vilnius for around nine months in 2015. Over six months of principal photography, the large production dressed streets transforming them into Napoleonic Russia, shot battle scenes in nearby farmland and rural portions at an outdoor Lithuanian Folk Museum an hour away from the city base. Producer Darin McCleod notes that “what is great about Vilnius is that everything is a walkable distance”, accommodation, the studio and city locations are all close by in the small capital. While historic parts are available, McCleod notes that “Lithuania was lacking well preserved palaces to
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LOCATION IHGHLIGHT
Open-Air Museum of Lithuania, Rumsiskes An hour’s drive from Vilnius lies the small town of Rumsiskes on the shores of Kaunas Lagoon. The town’s Open-Air Museum depicts the Lithuanian way of life from the late 1700s until 1950s. Authentic houses are furnished with household appliances, craft, trade and machinery and there is even a manor house dating back to the 1700s. At the heart of the museum is a town complete with a market square (pictured above), a church, and an inn. If you time your visit right you might encounter a traditional festivity the museum stages such as rye harvesting, Christmas tree stump-burning or the Shrovetide festival when locals traditionally dress up as devils, witches and goats before Lent. Productions that have made use of the perfectly preserved buildings include 2018’s Winter Thaw, a period film about a Russian shoemaker, and BBC’s mini-series adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace.