{"id":627602,"date":"2026-09-17T15:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627602\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T15:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:26:12","slug":"alief-boards-lithuanian-sci-fi-drama-dice-ching-o-mat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627602\/","title":{"rendered":"Alief Boards Lithuanian sci-fi drama ‘Dice-Ching-O-Mat’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tU.K.-French sales outfit Alief<\/a> has snapped international rights outside the Baltics and Poland to \u201cDice-Ching-a-Mat\u201c from Lithuanian filmmaker Kristijonas Vildziunas<\/a>, whose earlier works bowed in Venice (\u201cThe Lease\u201d), Cannes Un Certain Regard (\u201cYou Am I<\/a>\u201d) and twice served as Lithuania\u2019s Oscar bets (\u201cSeneca\u2019s Day,\u201d \u201cSongs for a Fox<\/a>\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe feature was powered by Vildziunas\u2019s regular partner Uljana Kim<\/a>, one of Lithuania\u2019s most esteemed producers, recipient of the prestigious Eurimages International Co-Production Award in 2023. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe announcement was made on the eve of the Warsaw International Film Festival where the film bows in competition.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a trailer shared with Variety, sci-fi blends with reality, with the main protagonist Vilis (seasoned actor Dainus Gavenonis<\/a> from \u201cPoetas,\u201d \u201cThe Southern Chronicles<\/a>\u201d), stuck in a mysterious Cube, similar to an old Soviet elevator, asking for help to get out.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the claustrophobic space \u2013 a physical representation of Vilis\u2019 mind, a voice in an intercom tells him that to reclaim his lost identity, he must exit through a red door and return by the green.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn different sequences, he finds his way back to real life and to his family, affected by the pandemic. As he learns to master the mechanism, he understands that he needs to get a grip of his life and reconnect with his three adult children and wife that he had emotionally abandoned. \u201cI drowned in my work. I don\u2019t remember you as kids which makes me really sad,\u201d he tells his children.<\/p>\n

\n\tPlaying against Gavenonis are Vilma Raubait\u0117 (\u201cToxic\u201d), Adel\u0117 \u0160uminskait\u0117, Maksim Semionov and Vaidil\u0117 Juozaityt\u0117.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2019Dice-Ching-O-Mat\u2019 presents a grounded high concept story about personal transformation, familial bonds, and navigating life\u2019s unexpected challenges whole heartedly. It converges time travel with generational drama into a rewarding experience,\u201d said Miguel Govea, partner at Alief which repped Vildziunas\u2019 previous pic \u201cSongs for a Fox<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[The film is] for those interested in visually striking, emotionally engaging drama with a fantastical twist,\u201d added Alief president Brett Walker.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnpacking the genesis of the film, Vildziunas said the idea grew out of his personal experience with COVID back in 2020, when the world suddenly shut down.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would say that with every challenge, personal or collective, beyond all the pain and suffering, lies a gift to be unpacked,\u201d he said, referring to his own realization during the pandemic, that \u201cI had spent all my best years on my career and could not even remember what my kids were like when they were small.\u201d
He added: \u201cMy relationships with the people closest to me had been left on autopilot, and the emotional connection had been lost somewhere along the way. And I understood that I wanted it back! In the silence of that full stop, I realized that I did not know who I was anymore. So \u2018Dice-Ching-o-Mat\u2019 is based on that feeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the enigmatic title and meaning of the Cube, Vildziunas said, \u201dI felt that this story could not be horizontal, that it was impossible to tell it without a tangible reflection of the protagonist\u2019s inner world, without showing how his mind works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe set his focus on a scholar, devoted to \u201can extremely obscure subject\u201d \u2013 the ancient Chinese divination text I Ching-but contrastingly unable to grasp his own life.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe writer-director then made his character\u2019s saturated mind look like \u201can old Soviet lift, oddly intermingled with the symbolism of a game based on the I Ching.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe title is derived from all of that,\u201d said Vildziunas. \u201cDice represents chance and the game, Ching stands for the I Ching, and \u201co-Mat\u201d for an automation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAesthetically, Vildziunas said he had no single visual model for the film. \u201cThe visual approach\u201d he insisted, \u201cwas dictated by the chapters which show different stages of the protagonist\u2019s inner odyssey back home, from a rigid state of mind to emotional reconnection. So we took a risk and filmed them quite differently, using different lenses, compositions, mise-en-sc\u00e8ne and colours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tQuizzed on the biggest challenge on a production standpoint, Kim cited the building of the Cube, an elevator-like set. \u201cNothing this complex had previously been constructed and filmed in Lithuania,\u201d she stated, explaining that to make the workflow more efficient, two identical Cubes, suspended from a crane, mounted on vibrating platforms and attached to a centrifuge had to be built. \u201cIt was a lot to achieve with a limited budget of \u20ac1.5 million ($1.7 million),\u201d she stressed.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film was produced by Lithuania\u2019s Studio Uljana Kim, in co-production with Latvia\u2019s Studio Locomotive, Estonia\u2019s Filmivabrik and Poland\u2019s Documentary and Feature Film Studios (WFDiF), with support from the Lithuanian Film Centre, the National Film Centre of Latvia, the Estonian Film Institute, Estonian Cultural Endowment, Lithuanian National Radio and Television and Vilnius Film Fund.
Distribution in the co-production territories is set for 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.K.-French sales outfit Alief has snapped international rights outside the Baltics and Poland to \u201cDice-Ching-a-Mat\u201c from Lithuanian filmmaker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[266529,266530,93,61,60,266531,270,266532,266533,266534],"class_list":["post-627602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-alief","tag-dainus-gavenonis","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kristijonas-vildziunas","tag-movies","tag-songs-for-a-fox","tag-uljana-kim","tag-you-am-i"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}