Vilnius Mon Amour

I am in love with that city. After years away I was three days in the Lithuanian capital. It was indeed a Déjà vu, I have been there so many times but it has been a while ago. I was there because of Giedrė Beinoriūtė, filmmaker and teacher at the film school, and like me franchophile, so we said bonjour and merci and bonne nuit – also for that reason I chose the headline of this homage.

There IS a special atmosphere in Vilnius. Spiritual. You feel it when you walk in the old city on the cobblestones. Wherever you turn your head there is a church that catches your eyes. And wherever you walk you can be sure that there is a courtyard. Next to my hotel in the narrow street there are a couple of courtyards, that I entered – small houses where people live, where laundry is being dried in the sun and with the help of the wind that had its strong and cool moments the days I was there. And the Literatu Street with the Saint Germain Restaurant and the art works on the wall. I was having a vermouth outside with Audrius Stonys, who picked me up in the airport, a film director who deserves his international recognition. Happy to have known him since the early 1990’es, where he came to the island of Bornholm for the Balticum Film & TV Festival together with Arunas Matelis. They were the young talents from Lithuania and came to the island with their teacher, legendary Henrikas Sablevicius.

I met Arunas in Vilnius in the “independent republic” of Užupis, at the square with the angel. We had a beer in the famous bar and passed the courtyard, where Arunas shot his masterpiece “Ten Minutes Before the Flight of Icarus” in 1990. It looks alike! Arunas used to tell me that he was the unofficial minister of foreign affairs at the Republic, well he has co-produced several southern European documentaries and the Giro d’Italia film “Wonderful Losers” (with Chris Anker Sørensen on the poster). They all show his humanistic approach to filmmaking.

Back to Audrius who has described the filmmaking tradition in Lithuania in this way: ““What is called the poetic school of Lithuanian documentary “…created an independent world, free from Soviet ideology, lie and propaganda. It was a declaration of inner freedom. The black and white world of poetic documentary films was full of colours. Sadness was full of joy. And joy was touched by deep existential sadness. These films reminded us about what is Cinema—to film and to enjoy the beauty of the leaves, moving in the wind.”

“Bridges of Time” that Audrius made with Latvian Kristine Briede documents this Baltic poetic Cinema and younger filmmakers than Audrius and Arunas represent fully the continuation like (SEE PHOTO) my host Giedrė Beinoriūtė and Aiste Zegulyte. Giedre’s last film “On Sacred and Profane” is traveling as is Aiste’s “Holy Destructors”. Poetic humanistic interpretations of reality.

I was sitting on a bench in the morning in Vilnius the other day. Quiet life, people on their way to work, kids hand in hand with mum or dad, or grandmother or grandfather, no drama, pure poetic everyday life…

Will it stay like that?

I was invited by Giedre to talk to students from the DocNomadsPlus programme, to comment on their pitching including small trailers/teasers/clips. The theme given to them was Love/AMOUR and I was shocked that several of the students, coming from all over the world, felt that something was happening among the people in Vilnius and beyond… mentally… they were prepared… a war is just around the corner. Belarus and Russia are neighbours.

Yes, not everything is in order in Lithuania, to say the least. Yesterday it was like this:

“Around 30,000 people gathered in Cathedral Square in Vilnius on Saturday in defence of free speech. Demonstrators turned their anger on both the ruling Social Democrats and President Gitanas Nausėda over proposed changes to the law governing Lithuania’s public broadcaster LRT.”

Talking to the filmmakers I met in wonderful Vilnius, they had nothing positive to say about the government and the president… Pro-Russia…

Photo: Vilnius! Wonderful Vilnius! Arranged by Giedre B. To the right. Panelists of a pitching session of DocNomadsPlus : Audrius Stonys, Linas Mikuta, Aiste Zegulyte, and me.

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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