Summer Rue: Grace in Lithuania

Lithuania’s Road to Freedom

Matthew — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:48:04 +0000

All history is biased, and this is no different, but worth a watch if you want to get a good taste for what has happened in Lithuania over the past few centuries. No, they are not innocent, but who is? Worth 30 minutes.

Road to Freedom

Standing Up for the Weak

Matthew — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:22:30 +0000

Some perspective on why this film is being made:

While economic freedom has made a few powerful people even more wealthy, there is a growing divide in Lithuania. The jobless rate continues to grow and many of the country’s best workers and brightest minds are forced to seek work inside other borders. And while they are able to send money home to feed their families, the price is high. They are the recipients of xenophobic violence in the UK, racial slurs in Italy and the new ethnic group “punch-line” for jokes throughout the EU. Back home in Lithuania, grandparents are called into action to care for the children of those who are living abroad.

Meanwhile a national policy which places no child support requirements upon fathers has created a large sub-population of young, single mothers. Add to this another national policy which essentially pays women to have children due to negative population growth, and you have a population of desperate children in the making. As it stands presently, many of the orphanages are filled with children who have parents but they lack money to feed, clothe, educate and house them. A recent report said the children of Lithuania are the least safe in all of Europe.

Winter Light, Summer Rue

Matthew — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:03:52 +0000

Netflix delivered Igmar Bergman’s classic “Winter Light” today and as I watched the beginning, I suddenly realized why things seemed so familiar when I was in Taurage, Lithuania last summer. The chancel at the church in Taurage looked like the that of the church featured in the Bergman film.

from University of Chicago Doc Films website

photo by Cindy Anast

Additionally, the communion liturgy felt the same and even the language sounded similar. Maybe it wasn’t the jet lag which left me with the surreal feeling sitting in worship there. Maybe it was the ghost of my first viewing of Bergman triggering my synapses.

And it would make sense from multiple angles for me to draw the parallels. The chancel in Taurage was given to them from a church in Sweden, and Lithuania is fewer than 250 miles from there across the Baltic Sea. But I believe it was more than that.

The heavy despair Bergman shows with shadow and distance is eerily similar to the lingering effects of communism and Soviet dominance over the people of Lithuania. Even before that, they were dominated by the Germans and caught between the battles of Napoleon and Czar Alexander of Russia. February 16 marks their first independence day from these forces, but they haven’t been truly independent until now. Even in their current independence, the shadows of the past cover more of the land than the dawn of new possibilities. For hope to thrive, it must point to the light.

The Amazing Mr. Thirtyfour

Matthew — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 04:04:20 +0000

Spoke with Blaine Sinderson today on my way back from Chicago and heard the good word that he looks to be in for the filming in Taurage this summer. This should be fun … and maybe even productive. Oddly enough, the guy who will be my grip/sound mixer/lighting tech is also a drummer from my past and present. Blaine (Thirtyfour) has played with me in m28 for the past three years and been the VP of Cool at Sonic Mustard for the past two. Every road trip with him is an adventure full of risk, daring, intrigue and a boatload of timeless one-liners which stand in my memory like marks on the doorframe of my life. This should be fun.

Support System @ Home

Matthew — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:46:37 +0000

As with most of the indie people I have spoken with, carving out space to do the production work is a challenge for everybody in the family. Luckily, I have gotten a great deal of support from my wife Emily in all this. We actually vacated the master bedroom in order to create a comfortable space to spend mind-numbing hours editing the footage. This isn’t the first time we’ve done this, however. When I was starting Sonic Mustard Records, we vacated the great room in our home to accommodate recording and mixing sessions with our artists. We, unfortunately, were more committed to their music than any of the artists and only released two records from that location plus my own. That won’t be the case this time. We are fully committed to telling the story of the Lithuanian people, even if that means sleeping in a smaller room. I figure, I still have a room to sleep in, so we are blessed nonetheless.

I have spent the past few days moving things around and now am able to begin getting things organized. I am setting up a network node for Final Cut Pro which will allow me to share functionality (especially rendering) across the network which consists of a MacBook Pro, PowerMac G5 and a Mac Mini. I doubt I’ll get close to the speed of one of those quad-core machines, but it is what I’ve got. Commando editing rig.

Not Meant to Be

Matthew — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:56:26 +0000

This project is and has always been about people: the people in Lithuania, the people here who I think need to hear their stories, and the people who I will get to make it with. Because of this, I was excited about the possibility of being reunited with my next-door neighbor who is a professional sound mixer for film and television. I began picking his brain in September of 2008, which eventually led to him saying: “I think I can come work with you on the project.” Needless to say I was thrilled. Tim and I used to ride our bikes together in grade school, cruise the streets in search of girls in high school, and roomed together in college. We played played in bands together from the seventh grade until college, toured the Midwest in an old Winnebago and recorded two albums together. We went our own ways in 1997; Tim went back to Florida and worked in reality TV and I kept kept writing in various capacities. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it will work out. Because we are low-budget … commando budget, I say … I had nothing to offer him beyond expenses. That was workable, but the economic times we are in dictate that one takes the work when he can get it. I’m still going to try and get him involved; it just won’t be on the overseas crew.

Rūta: What’s Behind the Project Name

Matthew — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:35:05 +0000

After returning from Lithuania last year, I was having a conversation on Skype with our translator, Rita, who told me about the national herb of Lithuania — the Rue. She even sent me a music video by a Lithuanian music artist singing about the little shrub. After some further research, I discovered this plant which is found in most every Lithuanian garden has quite a lore associated with it. It is said that the Rue was brought into Lithuania at the same time that Christianity arrived. Girls wear wreaths of it on their heads to symbolize their purity and priests use it in the same way we use pine branches to spread the waters of baptism about the sanctuary. It has pagan mythological association as well. People ask the Rue to ward of everything from evil spirits to snakes. But with all this positive power is the physical reality that Rue acts a lot like poison ivy when it touches your skin. I found it strange that something so irritating would also be so revered. But, that is in line with the paradoxical reality I observed there. Because of the trouble, suffering and pain that has always been a part of Lithuania, life (and faith) there is more complicated than in typical “missionary” places. I suppose when a First-World nation becomes independent of the force that gave it that status, complications will follow. I hope the documentary will capture some of that complexity that lies between the holy and the rash.