Woman on the edge: the world of Leida Laius

One of our favourite recent discoveries has been the work of the Estonian director Leida Laius. Working from the sixties until the end of the eighties, Laius’s films are striking for their fine work with actors and their uncommonly keen attention to the experiences of Soviet and Estonian women, including questions of motherhood, marriage, and sexuality. While she’s heralded in her homeland, like many female directors, her international reputation hasn’t kept pace with her talents – although there are welcome signs that this is changing, with a slew of new restorations and repertory screenings in recent years.

One such retrospective took place at the Spectacle Theater in New York earlier this year, programmed by critic and curator Kat Docalovich. This week, host Sam Goff welcomes Kat to the pod to discuss Laius’s life and times, the preoccupations of her work and some of her most enduring female protagonists. For good measure, they’re also joined by Baltic cinema expert and friend of the show Josh Polanski, some of whose writing on the subject you can find on the Klassiki Journal.

You can watch restorations of Laius’s final two films, Smile at Last and A Stolen Meeting, on Klassiki now, and read more about her work over on the Journal.

Get in touch: podcast@klassiki.online.

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Intro music by Juliet Merchant.