Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė

Drama King

This is his chance to shine! A janitor spins pirouettes and dances out his soul, to glance back at the three masked figures above the doors of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre at the end of his shift. Meanwhile, a coworker, watching his star turn in his TV box, silently cheers for the performance unfolding in the theatre corridors.

The Modern Flat

The story of the film is based on the artist’s home videos and documentary material covering a decade of his creative work. The author presents his apartment as a living space and the main character of the film. By engaging his entire family in the project, he creates a new micro-social model of his home, where they all act according to self-imposed rules. Events that take place are both casual and creative: the living space becomes a stage, routine becomes performance and the other way round, art projects become family entertainment, as well as a radical transformation of the home.

Twittering Soul

A musician on his way to meet a fellow fiddler, encounters two girls and is taken aback by their talks about afterlife. The musicians walk towards a village observing events, unable to discern phantasy from reality. Later, both men attend a funeral, where archaic rituals intertwine with the practice of marrying a dead girl to an ‘afterlife groom’.

1991

The year 1991. A hot summer night. Lithuania-Belarus border. It is nearly dawn. There are two customs wagons on the roadside. One of them has been burnt down. In the other one, border guards sit in silence. Someone opens the door without knocking.

Once Upon a Vilnius

Vilnius is a city of notable historical heritage and unique character currently undergoing considerable changes. Some of the life fragments our camera has recorded are no more. The film, therefore, is a testimony to that which has faded into oblivion, and a glimpse into what is to come.

Burial

With striking images and meticulous sound work, Burial reminds us of the paradoxical relationship between scientific development and the destruction of nature. Questioning the effects of human activity on the planet we inhabit and which we have put at risk, the film focuses on the unsolved issues of nuclear plants and nuclear activity.

People We Know Are Confused

Vilnius, four hot summer days. Goda is learning anew to have a relationship while dealing with past trauma. Juste always had a safe life, planned for her by others, as she finally realizes she wants to decide for herself. After twenty years of marriage Vytas leaves his family, unable to admit his true reasons. The voice of Anatolijus joins all of these stories and experiences into one breathless state, which every character is trying to escape on their way to finding freedom in a constantly changing society that keeps on developing new standards.

Interrogation

The year is 2000. Aleksandra, a young prosecutor, is handling a human trafficking case. She must conduct two interrogation sessions in one day. First, Aleksandra faces Andrius – a high-school friend turned suspect, who provokes and undermines her strategy, not leaving her any breathing space. During the second interrogation, she talks with Viktorija, the victim who has personal reasons to distrust law enforcement.

In the Mirror

A CrossFit trainer becomes the father of a baby girl, Snow White. Snow White’s mother dies, and her father marries a young woman obsessed with CrossFit and herself. She works out all the time in order to be the best. And she really is the best – she can do 50 burpees. In the meantime, little Snow White plays and grows up in the CrossFit gym. Time passes, and one day it turns out – while the Stepmother can do 50 burpees, Snow White can already do 53 burpees...

The Commission

For some time now, The State Commission of the Lithuanian Language is at the center of tough discussions. For some, it’s an institution which safeguards the most important principles of the language, but for others, it’s an anachronism of the Soviet regime. This film offers a first-time glimpse into the commission’s work

Spoon

A film about a plastic spoon and a society that has reached a high level of development – oil is being retrieved from subterranean depths, transported to processing plants, turned into plastic, transported to another plant, where it acquires the shape of a spoon, transported to convenience stores, where we buy it, and is then soon tossed into the trash. In other words, this is a film about the efforts put into making a spoon that can be thrown away so effortlessly.

Nijolė

An artist and her whole existence spent away from her homeland. The insight of a son, that forty years later interprets again the work of his mother.

Core of the World

Egor is a vet at a training facility for hunting dogs in a remote region of the country. Surrounded by foxes, deer, badgers, and dogs, he lives in a small building next to the house of the facility's master. He treats the dogs, cleans the kennels, oversees the workers, and meets with clients and their dogs. It's easier for him to get along with dogs than with people. Egor is willing to take on any job to get closer to the facility's master and his near and dear. He wants the impossible - to become a member of that family.

Energy Island

Energy Island invites viewers for an immersive sensorial trip into the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania, now undergoing a decommissioning process. The images of contaminated ruins transform in the fire, light and shadow; the destruction of the industrial space consistently reveals how Cold War energy structures impact recent geopolitical processes and leave planetary threats over long periods of time. The project takes a geological approach – it reads things that compose this flat landscape as a stack of stratigraphic layers. The man­made space is understood as a sedimentary process and the infrastructures, as well as the mineral resources, are assessed as the key parameters defining a development of the project.

Eastern Business

Two Moldavian friends begin a journey full of adventures and suspense trying various business ideas in order to earn enough money to achieve their dreams.

Together For Ever

The plot follows an ordinary woman whose family are becoming estranged. Her daughter is a compulsive liar, and her husband seeks escape by working as a stuntman in a B movie with a third-rate film company. The chances of him dying while filming are high, and everybody in the family knows it. Tormented by the thought that she is no longer needed and is unloved by her family, the woman will go to any extreme to prove the opposite, and to keep her family together for ever.

When We Talk About KGB

To say life in Vilnius, Lithuania, during Soviet occupation was tense would be an understatement. People were followed and photographed; restaurant dinner plates were bugged to catch potentially illicit conversations; car accidents were staged to waylay people while surveillance equipment was installed in their apartments; and many were detained, interrogated, imprisoned, or worse. Through expertly assembled KGB archival footage, earnest present-day interviews, and cleverly crafted returns-to-the-scene-of-the-crime, directors Maxì Dejoie and Virginija Vareikyté present an acutely compelling contemplation of a “non war” from both sides.

Master and Tatyana

Lithuanian photographer, the legend of Soviet Sixties' generation Vitas Luckus tragically passed away in 1987. Yet the life and times of the talented rebel still impassion and lead us to a journey questioning why, at all times, we are wary of those who are really free.

Non-Present Time

A young man's confusion in present times. The protagonist is looking for answers to questions that are relevant to many of his peers, coming of age in between a nostalgic socialist childhood and ideas pushed by a young democracy, relentlessly rushing forward.

Julia

Julia is a young transgender woman who left her home country of Lithuania. Now living in Germany, she walks the streets of Berlin, working as a prostitute to survive. This documentary revisits Julia over a ten-year period of her life.

Masha

This is a documentary film about five actresses of different generations who played the same role of Masha in Anton Chekhov's play 'The Seagull'. Masha is a woman who is in love with Konstantin, unrequitedly and for ever. This role left a mark of some sort in all the actresses' lives. The film is about parallels between their lives and the role they played, it is about the enclosed world of loneliness to which one comes and struggles to leave.

Marina's House

Andrei Tarkovsky said, “I find it hard to imagine the inner world of women, but I think it must be connected with the world of men…”

How We Played the Revolution

It was the year 1984 when a group of architects decided to organize a one night music band as a New Year's party joke in Kaunas, Lithuania. The joke proved to be so good that rumors about the new exciting rock band spread from lips to lips and soon their intellectual circus grew into the Rock Marches - massive events involving thousands of people - that transformed into the big meetings for Lithuanian Independence later named the Singing Revolution. This is the story about the people who raised their independence with the smiles and songs regardless of the danger of the situation.

Toys

Belarus. Town of Zhlobin. It's been 21 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most of the locals survive solely by making and selling soft toys. Their only customers are the people passing through on trains. However, approaching a train with a toy in one's hands is illegal. The film tells the stories of ordinary people living in the town of Zhlobin. They all make toys, sell them, have chats, drink, go back to making toys, sing, fight and... make toys again.

Baras

Arturas Barysas-Baras - film artist, actor collector of music, literature, etc, the leader and vocal of avantgarde music band "And Everything what is Beautiful is Beautiful", Vilnius citizen. Some people thought he was a simple tramp. Others considered him liberty ambassador sending to the world signs of freedom - form creative ideas to western books and music records. He was one of the most vivid soviet Lithuanian underground people who were not afraid to declare freedom when all of its forms were forbidden. But when soviet system collapsed he could not find himself in a world because "freedom" does not like to be put I in any kind of system no matter how liberal it is. Five years after his death Baras' best friends meet to find the answers who was Baras and how has his beloved Vilnius changed being without him.

The Nominees

After the National Performing Arts Awards, the bus of actors returns home: everyone was nominated, but no one won. The bus is filled with thank-you speeches, karaoke and champagne. As the actors are driving along, they suddenly see their colleagues' car on the side of the road.