Lithuanian Cinema Travels

Here we are – watch our films, meet our filmmakers. It seems like this is the policy of the Lithuanian Film Centre this year, where the population-wise small country celebrates its centenary. According to an article in Cineuropa – link below – … Over the past four months, thanks to support from the Lithuanian Film Centre, the heavy presence of both completed films and projects was evident in almost 20 countries worldwide…

The article mentions fiction films that have travelled, going on to mention documentaries that we deal with (mostly) on this site – … Moving onto documentaries, Rugilė Barzdiukaitė’s debut, Acid Forest [+], premiered at Locarno, whereas the co-production Bridges of Time [+] by Kristīne Briede and Audrius Stonys did likewise at Karlovy Vary. Previously premiered documentaries also pressed on with their festival runs. Lithuania’s Oscar submission, Wonderful Losers: A Different World [+] by Arūnas Matelis, was at the Belfast “Pull Focus” Documentary Festival and Ulju Mountain Film Festival, where it was also awarded, and The Ancient Woods [+] by Mindaugas Survila unspooled at the Sydney Film Festival…

I am still waiting to see “Acid Forest”, the three others have been reviewed on this site.

And when it comes to the so-called “industry presence” – …  the Lithuanian Film Centre was one of the partners in the Pula Film Festival’s Matchmaking Forum (see the news), while Lithuania was featured as one of the countries participating in Locarno Pro’s Match Me! producers’ networking programme (see the news). Also, Lithuanian producers Giedrė ickytė, Dagnė Vildiūnaitė, Marija Razgutė, Paulius Juočeris and Andrius Lekavičius were included in the selection of the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum and the Glocal Meets the Baltics section of San Sebastián…

DOK Leipzig hosts an impressive retrospective of Lithuanian documentaries from next week – read http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4368/ – and apart from the retrospective two new Lithuanian documentaries are in the “Next Masters” section at the festival: “Animus Animalis (A Story about People, Animals and Things)” by Aisté Zegulyté and “Nijole” by Sandro Bozzolo, produced by Dagnė Vildiūnaitė, experienced Lithuanian fiction and documentary producer. Several directors from the country have been invited to Leipzig.

https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/362126/

http://www.lkc.lt/en/2018/10/cinema-spreads-the-word-about-lithuania-across-the-world-four-months-four-continents-leading-festivals/

https://filmfinder.dok-leipzig.de/en/?&section=284

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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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