After last year’s Sundance triumph with “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood”, Estonian director Anna Hints is back with a new movie, a short titled “Sauna Day.” Co-directed with her partner Tushar Prakash, it world-premiered at this year’s Cannes Critics’ Week. At the Croisette, we had a long chat with Hints and Prakash, who unpacked the main themes and the making of their latest endeavor, which the fest catalogue bills as a tale wherein “masculine brotherhood is redefined in the intimacy of a sauna, far from the predictable showy, exuberant virility.”
When and how did you decide to embark on the making of this movie?
Anna Hints: We filmed this short last summer, during the only two or three weeks I was free. I’ve been traveling crazily because of “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood.” We were supposed to rest but, after travelling so much with your movie, you can find yourself totally ‘empty,’ and not working on anything creatively new. We didn’t film in a ‘typical’ way at all, we worked with this community of local men [based] in this very traditional part of southern Estonia and with some actors. It’s been really beautiful and fulfilling. Being immersed in the smoke sauna culture and fascinated by this [type of] space is definitely something that unites both movies. This kind of space is almost like a canvas or a tool to explore human connections.
Where did you shoot it?
AH: We shot it in a valley at the border between Setumaa and Võrumaa, in the south-eastern part of the country, [a place] where smoke sauna culture is deeply rooted.
Tushar Prakash: I’d like to add that male-related themes have always been a fascinating space to explore. I’ve tried to understand [these themes] myself coming from a major patriarchal lineage. I’m trying to understand that why it’s so difficult for men to connect with their most vulnerable side. That’s also something I’ve struggled with throughout my life, [questioning] how men can open up and their inability to cry, to be emotional, or just to say ‘I love you’ and embark on deep, intimate friendships. That’s something that I’ve always seen in men around me even back in India, and now in Estonia. [It’s hard] to see men that they’re always there for each other, and they really struggle to connect by physical contact.
AH: When you think about intimacy in smoke saunas, women really voice out their deepest feelings, emotions and experiences. But here our task was to find the way of filming something that is [left] unsaid. Things don’t come through words. Words are mundane. Among each other, those men talk so much but without using ‘words.’
I agree, this ‘unsaid’ attitude among men is widespread and very relatable. Besides, how did you work on portraying the relationship between rituality and time?
TP: We tried to study ‘code switching.’ How do we take part in society? What kind of clothes do we wear? What kind of language do we speak? What code do we choose when we don’t interact? At first, their words are mundane, they speak about the roof, the building they’re in. They’re performing their roles. But then they start speaking a different language and at some point a lot is told through their body language…
AH: They’re performing a ritual. They perform a socially acceptable ritual and later engage into that ‘forbidden talk.’ For us it was interesting to play with these elements. Speaking of time, I think time is everything. It’s one of the most important elements constituting a movie. The problem I see in many shorts is that they look like ‘wannabe’ features. In literature there’s poetry and different forms like haiku or ballads, all with different pacing and different runs. So for me the task was to ‘carve’ that poem out of this context. And time is also important while being in a smoke sauna. What you perceive while you’re there is timelessness; you lose your perception of time. But this also gives you the opportunity to be out of the ordinary, out of ‘linear time,’ you forget about your family… And that has been a fascinating aspect to explore.
You involved both actors and non-pros. How did you work with them? And, how did you gain their trust?
AH: The final cut lasts about 13 minutes and we’ve shot everything over five days or so. What you actually see in the movie, however, happened over the course of the last day. For four days, they lived together and ‘built up’ their community. As a director, it’s all about creating the right conditions [for them to be comfortable.] It’s all about creating that safe space. But, of course, this is only possible when you surround yourself with the right people, people who trust your process. One of the actors in particular trusted us very much and allowed us to film in his farm’s premises. Together, we also took part in a creative camp about one year before [filming], and we formed this amazing, fruitful relationship. Without trust and vulnerability from both sides – directors and actors – art cannot come to life!
How did you split your directing tasks?
TP: Last year, while I was travelling and she was very busy, I tried to handle pre-production as much as I could, aiming to form connections with the local community where we wanted to film. Being the two of us really helped in this case. I could keep the ‘engine’ on, so that things wouldn’t stagnate and prepare as much as I could on my own.
AH: Of course, it’s been a challenge. We’re living together, we’re creating together and we ‘credit each other’ depending on the tasks we take on. On “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” Tushar was one of the editors and cooked great Indian food after we were in the smoke sauna for hours! I think it’s just a way of living. And it’s so beautiful when you can share [something like this] with your loved ones. On the other hand, it’s also very hard to stop working, putting aside work when needed. And I think in sauna there’s also this experience we shared about not fitting in the ‘gender boxes’ we’re culturally used to. Somehow, all of this intimacy came into the movie.
