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The small absurdities of both institutions and families go on parade in Titas Laucius’s directorial feature debut. Migle (Rasa Samuolytė) is used to taking the lead, not just as the conductor of the school’s orchestra but also in the home she shares with her second husband Ignas (Valentin Novopolsky) and their teenage daughter Gabriele (Barbora Bareikyte), but all that is about to change.

Laucius shows his aptitude for situational humour from the start when, after a band room spot of Abh - an amusingly worked incident in its own right - mother and daughter hop into the car with Ignas and begin a philosophical debate on the rights and wrongs of violence to solve an issue. Beyond the back and forth, the humour of the scene chiefly comes from the fact that Ignas is using his car as a sort of Uber-style taxi service, meaning that an unsuspecting passenger is.

Titas Laucius: 'My closest friends say that I'm 70 years old, in my head, in my soul. I really like the feeling of nostalgia and I wanted to get this feeling' Photo: Courtesy of Poff Titas Laucius shows a knack for absurdist comedy in his very funny first feature Parade, which sees a woman, Migle (Rasa Samuolyte) become embroiled in Catholic bureaucracy as she tries to help her long-ago divorced ex (Giedrius Savickas) annul their marriage in the eyes of the church, while also facing the more immediate problem of her daughter (Barbora Bareikyte) quitting the school orchestra she conducts. In addition to his own film, which had its world premiere in the First Feature Competition at Tallinn Black Nights, he also co-wrote horror film Pensive, which had its premiere in the festival’s Baltic Competition strand. We caught up with the director in Tallinn to chat to him about comedy,...