COMMON PEOPLE: Lost Boys (Joonas Neuvonen, Sadri Cetinkaya, 2020)

The cycle of documentary film screenings Common People initiated by Kaunas Artists’ House (KAH) and Kitas Kinas is back for the third outdoor cinema season! This time at Kaunas culture center terrace (Vytautas avenue 79, Kaunas).

The screening of a film “Lost Boys” (dir. Joonas Neuvonen, Sadri Cetinkaya, 2020) will be held at Kaunas Culture Center terrace on August 25th 8:30 p.m.

Lost Boys is a documentary about damnation – about three men lost in a drug hell, defeated in the game of life, disappearing into the streets of Cambodia. Of the three, Jani is known as the main character of the documentary Reindeerspotting – Escape from Santaland (2010) and Joonas as its director. The main character of Lost Boys is Joonas himself.

The naked real life story full of sex, drugs and death tells us what happened ten years ago when these friends enjoying the never-ending after party following the success of the opening of the film Reindeerspotting that depicts drug users in Rovaniemi, change from immortal to mortal. The party comes to an end when Jani dies a violent death in Phnom Penh.

In the film Lost Boys, Joonas’ camera takes the viewer into the dizzying noise of Bangkok and the alleys of night-time Phnom Penh, to the last weeks of Jani’s life and the desperate search following his disappearance and death. What happened on the journey?

Can the answer be found in the videos shot by Joonas or in something that has yet to be investigated and faced, filmed or told? Is it all about drugs, women and money or does the trail lead somewhere deeper?

Someone knows something. Joonas is looking for his friends and the local women with whom they partied and with whom they shared whatever they had to share. Joonas must find his own truth about what happened among the drugs and the gloom. There are no heroes there.

“Lost Boys is brutal cinema, with a screenplay provided by real-life events its aim being to tell the truth.” – Joonas Neuvonen, director.

Documentary, Finland, 2020, Finish, English and Thai with English and Lithuanian subtitles for deaf or hard of hearing, 99 min.

After every film preview there will be discussions with various experts of different fields of interest. They will be announced soon.

Tickets and discounts: tickets cost €3 (€1,5 concessions – schoolchildren, students, seniors, people with disabilities). Tickets can be purchased at “Tiketa” sales points in person and online. Tickets won’t be available to purchase at the event venue.

Tickets here.

The Common People screening series aims to discuss not only the content of documentary films, but also the whole notion of documentary cinema. The series addresses questions of ethics, directorial decisions. To film or not to film? When does a director cross the line of closeness with their subject? Should documentary cinema reflect ‘reality’ or the vision of its creator? These questions and others are raised and discussed by looking at films who maintain a close look at people telling their own stories: sensitive, creative, eccentric and based somewhere in the margins.

The project is curated by Karolis Žukas (Kitas Kinas) and Edvinas Grinkevičius (Kaunas Artists’ House).

Visual identity: Eglė Simonavičiūtė.

The project is financed by the Lithuanian Film Center, organised by Kaunas Artists’ House. Partners: platform Kitas Kinas, Kaunas Culture Center, Kaunas Deaf Rehabilitation Centre.