THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA

Description

The Journey to America is an experimental short film about an ambitious writer’s longing to go to America and become famous.

 The film was part of Kārlis Vītols’ personal exhibition The Journey to America, which also included black-and-white watercolours of Americans encountered in the imagination and a slide-projected “longing stimulator” – photographs from the 1989 journey made by Kārlis’ grandfather, Aleksejs Kalniņš. The role of the main protagonist is played by Kārlis’ then-classmate, Aleksandrs, who realised his teenage dream and today lives in the United States of America.

 The film was made using footage filmed by Kārlis Vītols in 1997. Retrospectively, it can be considered his earliest film.