MODERN FLAT

MODERNUS BUTAS

By Dainius LISKEVICIUS

JUST A MOMENT - as PROD

Documentary - Completed 2023

Artist Dainius Liškevicius invites us into his living space where the line between the mundane and the creative is blurred. Home videos and contemporary documentary footage form the film’s cohesive tapestry, with the artist’s flat playing a central role.

Festivals
& Awards

European Film Forum "Scanorama" 2023
Kyoto Archtecture Film Festival 2023
    • Year of production
    • 2023
    • Genres
    • Documentary, Art - Culture
    • Countries
    • LITHUANIA
    • Languages
    • LITHUANIAN
    • Budget
    • 0 - 0.3 M$
    • Duration
    • 91 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Dainius LISKEVICIUS
    • Producer(s)
    • Dagne VILDZIUNAITE (JUST A MOMENT)
    • Synopsis
    • The story of the film is based on the artist Dainius Liškevičius’ home videos and documentary material covering a decade of his creative work. Its reference point is an artwork that started as artist’s reaction to the global financial crisis of 2008. In order to avoid depression and devaluation of his internal existence, Dainius decided to shut himself away in his home, and to experiment together with his family by changing the interior of one of the rooms. All the surrounding objects were used as “the building material” of the artwork, and the casual home environment was re(de)constructed through rearrangement of the furniture and things in the room into an artwork, a cube-like monument-obelisk. Is this a transformation of a trivial existence? Or is it simply an act of taking inventory of the surrounding objects that indicate life and time?
      In the film, the archival footage of this and other the previous artworks is combined with new episodes that are shot in contemporary cinema language and have strong visual style. The collage-like synthesis of the aestheticised images of the interior and current stories by the family members bind the visual style of the film into an integral narrative. The author presents his apartment as a living space and the main character of the film. By engaging his entire family in the project, the artist creates a new micro-social model of his place of residency where they all act according to self-inflicted rules.
      Throughout the film, a variety of acts unfold: everyday, festive, family, absurd, art, creative, solitary, revolutionary. Events that take place are both, casual and creative: the living space becomes a stage, routine becomes performance and other way round, art projects become family entertainment, as well as a radical transformation of the home. This film presents creativity as an element fundamental for survival. The family becomes a social unit, a collective that willingly participates in the creative processes initiated by the artist. They engage in these situations with a casual but festive approach, erasing the boundary between life and creative work, thus producing an “integral environment and play of moments of life,'' according to Guy DeBord.