The Lease

The atmospheric, restrained The Lease follows the movements of a Lithuanian businesswoman. The camera records her everyday activities: how she goes to work, makes compulsory family visits and how she meets her young lover. She rents an apartment without knowing that she and her neighbours are spied on by a neighbour with a telescope. The woman is putting her life back together. Unwanted phone calls, conversations with a girlfriend and a quarrel with her sister slowly start to reveal her secret past.The restrained acting of Larisa Kalpokaite beautifully matches the dreamy world of the film. For débutante director Vildziunas, the woman’s life reflects today’s post-Soviet life in Lithuania, in which apparent freedom does not necessarily bring inner freedom.Vildziunas: ‘The known is a dream in which you do not realise that you are dreaming. That is why you submit to its logic as if being a hero of a neverending serial. It’s like a prison. If you want to escape it, you must fight your fear, because the wilderness beyond the walls of the prison is the unknown.’