Hunger Strike Breakfast ★★½

The “hunger shack,” as the original title of Karolis Kaupinis’ bleak history lesson translates, is not only the cramped Vilnius industrialized flat in which the handful of characters gather, it is also a somber symbol for a small nation starved for a freedom that, in the crucial days of the tight plot, feels both just within reach and far away. Reframing a tumultuous turning point in Lithuanian history through the prism of personal longing, the story, set in January 1991, imagines the human collateral cost of the Soviet occupation of the Lithuanian Television headquarters. In January 1991, Soviet forces advanced into Lithuania to crush its burgeoning independence. 

Thousands of civilians took to the streets of the capital in protest, effectively driving back the soldiers who only managed to take over one building: the Lithuanian Radio and Television headquarters. This media invasion left some 700 employees suddenly out of work. A group of these displaced TV workers staged a makeshift hunger strike in a small trailer parked just outside their former work base. The deliberately small-scale story centers on the participants of this improvised protest, focusing on their emotional and psychological dynamics. Popular television presenter Daiva (Ineta Stasiulytė) initiates the strike in an attempt to reclaim a sense of agency in a social climate that has rendered her suddenly powerless. 

She is joined by her former superior Mykolas (Arvydas Dapšys) whose moral ambivalence and opportunism constantly contradict her desperate agitation. Then there is Sigis (Paulius Pinigis), a young actor whose initial annoyance at having his kid’s sleep interrupted by megaphone appeals slowly gives way to sympathy. His involvement begins almost accidentally but evolves into a form of emotional self-exposure. His theatrical personality and impulsive monologues inject both tension and unexpected levity into the confined space, turning the trailer into a kind of communal confession room. While the hunger strike is ostensibly a political act, Kaupinis frames it primarily as a human drama unfolding in the shadow of historic upheaval. 

The characters grapple with boredom, physical weakness, fear of violence, and the creeping realization that their protest may do nothing except get them blacklisted in a future repeating the past. The lack of individual and ideological involvement from the public who, as an opening text explains, soon forgot about the beleaguered broadcast network, emphasizes the characters’ personal and political isolation. The dismal scenario resists mass scenes, militarist mayhem, and martyrdom. Instead, it highlights the loneliness, unrequited longing, and regrets of an exhausted bunch of simple people, bound together not by idealistic activism, but by the need for human connection. 

As the days pass, the boundaries between political conviction and personal yearning blur. Cinematographer Simonas Glinskis’ restrained aesthetic captures interiors with grain and muted colors, evoking the literal and optical drab mood of early 1990s Lithuania. Kaupinis, himself a former TV presenter turned director, blends history, intimacy, and absurdist humor within the national crisis. Long, static takes have the cramped trailer feel, simultaneously like a sanctuary and a pressure cooker. Natural and practical light sources emphasize the bleakness of the interiors and cityscape with tactile realism. Muted greys, browns, and washed-out blues evoke the visual memory of early-1990s Baltic television, reinforcing the sense of lingering in a moment of suspended transition. 

Refusing a sweeping, triumphant narrative, Kaupinis finds tenderness in stillness and small gestures. Aesthetic austerity intensifies intimacy in a fragile tale of self-determination, solidarity, and silent strength.