An Interview With Emilija Skarnulvte
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An Interview With Emilija SkarnulvteSourceURL: https://www.filmmonthly.com/exclusives/interviews/an-interview-with-emilija-skarnulyte%ef%bf%bc%ef%bf%bc |
An Interview With Emilija Škarnulytė
There are many reasons for human burial. As death occurs and a person’s body begins to decay, traditional thinking suggests that burial is a requirement for maintaining public health. But according to the World Health Organization, only corpses carrying an infectious disease must adhere to the burial requirement. With this in mind, it seems that intentional burial, from its earliest instances to the present, is more of a manifestation of humanity’s desire to honor the dead rather than merely a practice of stopping the spread of disease.
Archaeological evidence suggests that Neanderthals were the first human species to intentionally bury their dead, doing so in shallow graves using tools made of stone and animal bone. In recent times, scholars have also suggested that the earliest human burial dates back 100,000 years to Qafzeh, Israel. Here, in a location known as the Skhul Cave, human skeletal remains were found stained with red ochre, and surrounded by a variety of goods including the mandible of a wild boar tucked into the arms of one of the skeletons.
From the tombs of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, to the medieval cemeteries of Western and Central Europe, the burying of corpses with artifacts from their daily lives was a widespread phenomenon. As is the case today for its practitioners, burial was an act of respect for physical remains; served as a bridge or gateway to the afterlife; and was a ritual of closure for the family and loved ones of the deceased.
But intentional burial is not limited to funerary rites. Along with showing appreciation and deference to those who have passed away, the act of burying something also compliments another familiar and universal human need; the need to hide things.
Just about as long as societies have been burying their dead, so too have they concealed objects; charms and totems meant to bring prosperity, ward off evil spirits, or link a past community to its future inhabitants. One example is a Celtic tradition of burying a horse skull in the floor or under the hearth of a newly-built house; sometimes it would be the entire skull, and other times just the front section or top without the lower jaw. These skulls are still uncovered in many locations throughout Ireland, the UK, and Scandinavia. In England and Ireland, it was also customary in many regions to bury dead cats in the walls or under the floors of houses to protect inhabitants from malicious spirits.
In the field of architecture, the practice of burying or concealing items in the structure of a house is called immurement. Unfortunately, immurement has also historically been used to describe a form of imprisonment, usually until death, in which a person is sealed within an enclosed space without exits. One notable example of immurement from the ancient world pertains to Vestal Virgins in the Roman Empire. Vestal Virgins, or Vestals, were priestesses of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. As described in her book, "Rome, Pollution and Propriety," author Celia E. Schultz says that not only were these priestesses responsible for performing numerous rites that cleansed the city and people of pollution, but they were also capable of bringing pollution upon the Roman State by failing to maintain their own sacred status; this occurred by not upholding their 30-year vow of chastity in order to devote themselves to the study and correct observance of state rituals. If a Vestal became unchaste, the entire Roman State could be at stake of collapsing. Thus, they were entombed alive to prevent any further contamination of the minds and bodies of the citizens.
At the heart of hiding is the need to survive. Whether taking shelter from a physical attack, or concealing a truth to avoid shame or embarrassment, there is a learned behavior amongst human society that to preserve one’s livelihood sometimes it is necessary to make yourself, or the object of aggression, disappear. But, as author Émile Zola once said, "If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way."
The question of whether something dangerous can remain safely buried forever, or whether its strength and influence will only resurface, is central to director Emilija Škarnulytė’s feature debut "Burial," which recently screened at the 2022 New York Baltic Film Festival. Established in 2018, the New York Baltic Film Festival is presented and organized by Scandinavia House in collaboration with the Consulate General of Estonia, Consulate General of Lithuania, and Daris Delins, former Honorary Consul for Latvia in New York and founder of the festival.
Photo Credit: Monika PenkuteThe film unfolds from the point of view of a future archaeologist who is exploring the now decommissioned Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant located in the Visaginas Municipality of Lithuania. The Soviet Union intended the power plant to be a symbol of its technological ingenuity, and the facility came online in August of 1987. However, due to the plant’s similarities to the Chernobyl Nuclear Powerplant, in both reactor design and the lack of a robust containment building, Lithuania agreed to close the plant as part of its agreement to join the European Union. The first phase of decommission lasted from 2004 to 2013. The second phase runs from 2014 to 2029, and by 2030 the site of the plant’s two reactors is expected to be ready for re-use.
As our future archaeologist meanders through the foreboding rooms and corridors of the plant, the question arises of what will happen to the tons of nuclear waste that the site produced? In recent times, several nations have been constructing safe confinement sites, such as the Meuse/Haute Marne Underground Research Laboratory. The site is located 500 meters underground in Bure, France, and is intended to serve as a deep geological repository of high-level and long-lived medium-level radioactive waste. Here, the intention is to store the waste in carbon steel sarcophagi, protected by inner and outer layers of stainless steel cladding. The objective is not to shield radioactive emissions, but to prevent the release of radioactive dust and other materials from contaminating water sources.
These sarcophagi can last up to 100,000 years. Unfortunately, it can take a million years for radioactive material to fully decay. As the film progresses and we continue on our journey with the future archaeologist, the narrative asks us to examine not just the complex efforts in disposing of radioactive waste, but to also investigate some of our most familiar survival tactics; tactics that instead of providing safety, lead us to ruin.
Škarnulytė was born in Vilnius and has been working as both a filmmaker and as a visual artist. In terms of her cinematic output, to label her projects as strictly documentary would be inadequate. Rather, her films are immersive journeys that explore deep time and invisible structures, from the cosmic and geologic, to the ecological and political. Škarnulytė was the winner of the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize, and also represented Lithuania at the XXII Triennale di Milano. Her recent solo exhibitions include the Tate Modern (2021), Kunsthaus Pasquart (2021), and the National Gallery in Vilnius (2021). Her films have been screened at the Serpentine Gallery, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and numerous film festivals around the world. Škarnulytė is also a founder and co-director of Polar Film Lab, and a member of the artist duo New Mineral Collective.
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Škarnulytė about the production of Burial.
MV: First, I just want to say how much I admire the film and what a tremendous accomplishment I think it is.
What I found most exciting was the narrative device and structure you chose to tell the story with. This isn’t a typical documentary that unfolds chronologically and contains interviews of the characters involved. Rather, it’s from the perspective of a future archaeologist which I think works quite well.
I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about how this project developed, and why you chose to structure it the way you did?
ES: Well, the production of Burial took seven years and the inspiration for the project came from my personal life. You see, my grandmother became blind in 1986 as a direct result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. I was born in 1987, so she has never physically seen me. Her image of me comes from other forms of perception; such as the emotional and the spiritual. And it is the theme of invisible power structures impacting time and space that most influence my work. Here you have elements such as neutrinos, quantum physics, and ecological issues. These components of our reality are bigger than us and ones that we cannot fully control. Of all these invisible elements, one of the most imposing and complex is radioactivity.
I knew I wanted to further explore this element of radioactivity that impacted my family and Lithuania. When I arrived at the nuclear powerplant, I discovered this large-scale structure that was a sort of monument to the Cold-War era. As I spent more time exploring the location, I became convinced that I needed to make a feature that incorporated its history and influence.
After a couple of years of production, I decided to also connect the subject matter to a more global perspective, rather than limiting it to Eastern Europe. Here, not only would we look at the rise, decommission and burial of a nuclear powerplant, but we would also journey to France, New Mexico, and a Etruscan necropolis in order to better understand the circular nature of time and our existence within it. Cinematically, the goal was to give the audience the impression that they were seeing things through the eyes of an extraterrestrial who has just landed and is discovering all these human artifacts and scars of past civilizations.
My objective was to distance the project from the politics of the current moment, and instead offer an examination of these colossal structures and monuments as if they were being viewed by a being who had no knowledge as to their history or use. Instead, it was as if they happened to step onto an archaeological site and were trying to decipher these mysterious ruins. As we know, our planet is not solely made up of human life. There are many diverse lifeforms and species populating it. So for me, approaching a narrative from something other than a human perspective is always exciting.
Geological time is also of great interest to me, and in many ways Burial can be thought of as a cinematic core sample of the world around us. With the camera as an excavation tool, we can probe through layers of time and space to further experience the beauty and enigmas of our reality.
Additionally, there’s a circular structure at work. What I was also trying to mimic was the lifespan of Uranium itself. Here, you have a natural resource lying dormant within the Earth. Then, we watch it move through the production and consumption process, its decommission within a nuclear powerplant, and finally returning it to the depths of the Earth. I was really drawn to exploring this circular nature of reality.
MV: Within this nuclear powerplant, we see workers wearing full protective clothing and the testing of radiation levels. For you, being in these locations that possess an element of lingering danger, were there challenges or fears you had to overcome that have not existed in your previous film projects?
ES: There were definitely challenges because no piece of clothing was able to fully protect against the radiation. Also, it was difficult to obtain permission to shoot at each site, and the process of filming itself was challenging. It was impossible to plan ahead and compose a shot list because we had very limited time in each of the spaces. During the production, the radiation level was constantly around us, so we found ourselves moving along with this wave of radiation; almost like we had to keep backing away as the tide came closer and closer. This was a challenging situation because I’m obsessed with spending time with each composition and the circumstances didn’t allow us much time for more than one shot. We always had to move fast due to radiation levels rising, but that also allowed us to be very sharp and fast in our decision making.
MV: The camera work and cinematography is quite breathtaking. You really do feel as if you’re in the shoes of an archaeologist exploring these time periods and environments.
For this film, and your films in general, what’s your approach to mapping out the shot design? Are you doing a lot of pre-planning and almost storyboarding, or are you assembling it and coming up with the structure more in the edit?
ES: I would say composition, light, rhythm, and timing. All of these are important. The narrative is constructed by way of me studying and visiting the sites I want to explore. For each of my projects, I spend a lot of time researching the space. The same goes for staging the frame and its composition. For me, each image has to work as a portal or vortex; a pathway for the viewer to descend into a sensory journey. In fact, each millisecond involved in the flow of space and time has to be considered. Of course, a lot of the structure comes about in the edit. As I mentioned, there are three primary threads making up Burial: geological, circular and cyclical. These threads not only drive the emotional pull of the film, but determine how the structure operates as well.
MV: Can you also talk a bit about your approach to the music and sound design. The various pieces of music and sound effects can at times create this ethereal mood, and other times this haunting and foreboding atmosphere. What were you hoping to achieve with the sound design?
ES: Well, music and sound design have always been vital components for this project; even during the planning stages. Since I don’t have many characters or voice over throughout the film, it was necessary to hone in on the atmosphere of the spaces and showcase their energy and life. Just has the camera is an important tool to the overall sensory experience of the film, so too is the sound design.
For us, it was essential that the sound design reflect the idea of eternity. Although when you initially hear these sounds they seem synthetic and electronic, in reality most of the sounds were made from the actual environments; interactions with the ground, rock, electricity and flowing water. However, these organic sounds were then re-contextualized and removed from their natural habitats; they were stretched and time-warped in post-production. Here, the most miniscule snippets of sound and sonic particles are extended hundreds of times their original duration. This technique allowed us to transform each environment into a howling, evolving and unique character. Often times it was a conversation; a dialog between low tones, hums, rumbles, and piercing frequencies which ring off metallic structures and underground reservoirs.
What’s great is that sound design tends to embrace a hyper-realistic aesthetic; saturated complex tones are countered by sterile stillness. I love how sound extends the audiovisual space behind the screen, so that sonic objects move freely in three-dimensional space. I think we always had this in mind when we were mapping out the music and sound for the film.
MV: Throughout all of your art and storytelling, have you noticed a certain theme that exists or a component that seems to always be present? I’m wondering what a piece of material or subject matter needs to possess in order for you to become interested and want to turn it into a film project?
ES: Yes, as I mentioned I’m drawn to these archaeological and geological themes and trying to reflect on human civilization through the topic of deep time. An example would be the oceans. As waters and sea levels shift, things that were previously buried come to the surface. That phenomenon is very appealing to me.
There also tends to be mythological elements within my work; particularly mythology as it relates to the Cold-War era. I’m interested in the myths and stories that were promoted during the Cold War; what the West thought of the East and vice versa. I also like having a mythological character or visionary guide the viewer through these narratives. In the case of Burial, you have a python that continues to resurface and move the story along at critical moments.
Because my projects tend to exist outside of established film genres, it can be a bit of a struggle finding them a home later on. For example, festival programmers have a difficult time determining what category they should exist in. So I’m always happy when they find an audience that appreciates and responds to them.
MV: This film really helps to educate the viewer about a troubling past and potentially a troubling future. I’m wondering, with this film, did you learn anything unexpected about yourself personally, or as an artist, by going through this unique filmmaking journey?
ES: I feel like this is the type of film that grows and lives together side-by-side with you. It’s hard to stop this powerful relationship once it has begun. In fact, in the case of Burial, I probably would have kept filming for years if it hadn’t been for my producers telling me it was time to wrap the project up. Inevitably, when you’re working on a project for an extended period of time, your perception about it changes and you want to continue to make adjustments to it. But I learned a lot through the process and am very pleased how the film turned out.
MV: How did you first become interested in storytelling and filmmaking? Was this a gradual realization, or was there a single moment where you said yes, I want to tell visual stories?
ES: I come from a visual arts background, not film. You see, initially I studied sculpture in Milan and I tend to think of filmmaking as a sculptural element; the frames of a piece of film like clay that you can mold. Here, instead of physically kneading a substance, we are shaping space and time through the moving image. When I do my large-scale art installations, I like creating landscapes where visitors can walk in and physically interact with the art and become part of this unique experience. The same approach applies to my filmmaking. I want to create an immersive experience for the viewer, where they truly feel connected to the work. For me, the examination of the looping nature of time is a reoccurring theme, and something that I try to keep in mind when I’m designing my cinematic experiences. I’ve now been producing film projects for 12 years, and am looking forward to going on ever-more complex journeys with my audiences.
An Interview With Emilija |
https://www.filmmonthly.com/exclusives/interviews/an-interview-with-emilija-skarnulyte%ef%bf%bc%ef%bf%bc
the practice of burying or concealing items in the structure of a house is called immurement
immurement has also historically been used to describe a form of imprisonment, usually until death, in which a person is sealed within an enclosed space without exits. One notable example of immurement from the ancient world pertains to Vestal Virgins in the Roman Empire. Vestal Virgins, or Vestals, were priestesses of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth.