European Film Awards 2024: Saulė Bliuvaitė Talks TOXIC, Post-Soviet Realities, Authentic Adolescence
Lithuanian director Saulė Bliuvaitė rose to prominence when her feature-length debut, Toxic, claimed awards at this year´s Locarno Film Festival. After traveling the international festival circuit, the film earned a nomination for Discovery of the Year at the 37th European Film Awards. Ahead of the awards ceremony, Bliuvaitė reflected on her debut, a film rooted in her personal experiences and memories.
Drawing from her upbringing in 1990s Lithuania, the film portrays the post-industrial sprawl of factory workers’ housing. “I was born in the ’90s,” Bliuvaitė explained. “The area where I grew up was once a hub for factories, with residential blocks built for workers. By the time I came along, those factories were fading, and what was left was a kind of sadness, a sense of stagnation that you couldn’t ignore.”
For the director, representing this specific environment was both a personal necessity and a narrative choice. “It’s not the face of Lithuania,” she admitted. “It’s not the shiny, polished image of the capital or a tourist brochure. But it’s a place I feel for—a place that shaped me.”
The world of Toxic is both familiar and heightened, blending authenticity with surreal exaggeration. While the visual language of the film leans heavily into the aesthetics of factories and industrial decay, Bliuvaitė acknowledged the creative liberties she took to achieve its striking imagery.
“It’s like the reality I knew, but on steroids,” she said with a laugh. “The film reflects the environment I grew up in, but it’s also a surreal frame of that reality—something slightly removed, slightly distorted. It’s not 100% realistic, but it feels true.”
Beyond its visuals, Toxic explores the socio-economic struggles of post-Soviet Lithuania and how they shaped personal identity and self-perception. “There was this lingering mentality from Soviet times,” Bliuvaitė explained. “A sense that you were stuck in the position the system placed you in, that you couldn’t break free or create a better future for yourself.
"It was frustrating, especially for someone like me who grew up with access to the internet, American shows, and a broader sense of what was possible. That clash between the old way of thinking and my own aspirations was something I really wanted to explore.”
Authenticity was central to Bliuvaitė’s approach, especially in casting. The film’s two leads required young actors who could embody the vulnerability and confusion of being 13 or 14 years old—an age often misrepresented in movies. The casting process, however, proved to be an uphill battle.
Spanning nearly two years, it was delayed repeatedly due to funding issues, which necessitated recasting actors who had aged out of their roles by the time production began. “I hate watching films or TV shows where teenagers are played by grown-ups,” Bliuvaitė noted. “It creates such a disconnect. A 14-year-old isn’t a fully formed adult—they’re still a kid, and that changes how you perceive their experiences, their emotions, and their bodies.”
Instead of relying on traditional auditions, Bliuvaitė treated casting as an organic process. She met with potential candidates for in-depth conversations about the script and the themes of the story. These discussions allowed her to gauge not only their acting ability but also their personal connection to the material.
“It was almost like research for me,” she said. “Many of the teenagers opened up about their own experiences, their struggles, and their thoughts on growing up. Those conversations were invaluable—they didn’t just help me find the right actors; they also influenced how I shaped the story.”
Given the sensitive material in Toxic, Bliuvaitė prioritized transparency with the families of her young actors. “The first thing I did after casting the two main girls was meet with their parents,” she said. “They read the script, and we discussed every intense scene in detail. It was crucial for them to understand what their kids would be portraying and to ensure they were comfortable with it.”
This collaborative dynamic extended to the young actors, who had a say in how their characters were depicted. For instance, when actress Ieva Rupeikaite, who played Kristina, expressed discomfort with performing her first on-screen kiss, the production adjusted accordingly.
“She told us, ‘I don’t want to spoil my first kiss,’” Bliuvaitė recalled. “And we respected that. We worked around it, choreographing the scene in a way that still conveyed the story but honored her boundaries.”
To handle moments requiring physical or emotional intimacy, Bliuvaitė brought in an intimacy coordinator. “Although there are no explicit sex scenes in the film, there were moments that required physical closeness or emotional intensity,” she explained. “The intimacy coordinator helped direct these scenes while respecting the actors’ boundaries. It was like choreographing stunts—everything was technical, detached, and very carefully planned.”
This meticulous approach ensured a balance between technical precision and emotional authenticity. “In the more intense scenes, the girls were completely detached from their characters—it was all technical,” she said.
Toxic tackles adolescence as a time of vulnerability and transformation, capturing first-time experiences, confusion, and the tension between innocence and maturity. Bliuvaitė portrayed milestones like smoking, drinking, and budding intimacy with a careful balance of realism and responsibility.
“Everything was fake,” she said, referring to the simulated cigarettes and alcohol used in the film. “But even with fake cigarettes, there’s a learning curve. One of the girls had to be taught how to inhale to make it look convincing on screen.”
This attention to detail extended to every aspect of the performances, especially during emotionally charged scenes. “We choreographed everything down to the smallest detail,” Bliuvaitė explained. “It was important for the actors to feel safe and in control, especially since many of these moments were so new to them.”
Adolescence, as depicted in Toxic, is a time of limbo and conflicting perceptions. “You’re not a child anymore, but you’re not fully a teenager either,” Bliuvaitė said. “People around you perceive you differently—some see you as an adult, others still treat you like a kid. It’s such a confusing place to be.”
This is especially evident in the film’s exploration of the commodification of young girls’ bodies. “Suddenly, your body becomes something that people assign meaning to—something you might not even understand yet,” she explained. “It’s a time when you’re trying to figure out who you are, but society has already started defining you in ways you may not agree with.”
The film also critiques the modeling industry, where teenage girls are often styled as adults for magazine covers. “I was fascinated by how teenagers are portrayed as women in certain industries,” Bliuvaitė said. “It speaks to a larger issue of how society projects expectations onto young girls, shaping their sense of self-worth before they even understand themselves.”
Despite its heavy subject matter, Toxic retains a meditative quality, finding moments of beauty amidst bleakness. “I didn’t want the film to be just dark and rough,” Bliuvaitė explained. “I wanted to include moments of calmness, light, and even goodness. It’s about finding those small, human details that bring balance to a harsh environment.” This duality is reflected in the film’s visuals, where industrial decay is softened by thoughtful framing and careful attention to light and color.
Steering clear of “poverty porn” was essential to Bliuvaitė, who opted for a humanistic approach that highlighted the resilience of her characters. “I didn’t want to make a film that only focused on how hard or unfair life can be,” she said. Her visual and tonal inspirations ranged from Ulrich Seidl’s Hope—a reference for color and composition—to the Greek New Wave, particularly Attina Rachel Tsangari´s Attenberg.
Bliuvaitė naturally gravitated toward female narratives, drawing on her own experiences and those of the girls she grew up with. “It felt like the most honest place to start,” she said. “This is my first feature, and I wanted to reflect on something close to me—my own experiences, my own frustrations, and the experiences of the young girls I knew.”
Her commitment to authentic representation stemmed from her frustrations with shallow portrayals of women in media. “Growing up, female characters were either flat, overly sexualized, or relegated to the background,” she explained. “I wanted to portray teenage girls as they are.”
The journey of Toxic from script to screen was anything but linear. The initial concept for the film was, in Bliuvaitė’s words, “shallow.” “The first draft was very standard,” she admitted. “It was just a story about a shy girl meeting a cool girl—a dynamic we’ve seen so many times before. It lacked depth, and it wasn’t saying anything new.”
Over time, however, the story evolved, gaining complexity through the casting process. “The ambiguity of the characters came from the actors themselves,” she said. “We didn’t cast people who perfectly fit their roles on paper. For example, Marija, played by Vesta Matulyte, who’s supposed to be braver and more outgoing, is actually very shy in real life.”
Looking ahead, Bliuvaitė is already developing her next project, though she remains tight-lipped about the details. What she does know is that her work will continue to stem from a personal place.
“For me to be passionate about a script, it has to come from something personal,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean it will be autobiographical. Even in Toxic, a lot of the story is fiction. Sometimes it’s just a phrase I heard 10 years ago or a small moment from my life that I build into something much bigger.”
With Toxic as her launching pad, Bliuvaitė hopes to continue shooting films that challenge conventions and offer fresh perspectives. “I want to keep surprising myself,” she said. “And hopefully, in doing so, I’ll surprise audience too.”
Cover image (c) Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press
