Director: Almantas Grikevičius
Duration: 0:20
Year: 1966

Time Passes Through the City

The main hero of this film is the city of Vilnius. Vilnius is also a metaphor for the historicity of Lithuania. This film, however, is unique not only for its cinematographic reflections on the history and statehood of Lithuania but also for its treatment of the history of cinema - it encompasses both Russian (Soviet) montage techniques and the first traces of cinéma-vérité in Lithuanian cinema.

Director: Antanina Pavlova
Duration: 0:10
Year: 1967

Birth of Character

Early in the morning, the children start their journey to kindergarten, hand-in-hand with their parents. There is no shortage of activities for the little ones here - under the supervision of the kindergarten staff, they play sports, have health checks, dance, sing and play, and lunch and bedtime are not forgotten. Despite the common activities and the abundance of children in the frame, the different characters and interests of the children are slowly becoming apparent - from the closed-minded sensitives, to the company souls and the naughty ones who don't want to go to bed, from those who are fascinated by medicine to those who are interested in the hairdressing trade. They are all individuals, and each one of them is observed by a silent camera.

Director: Robertas Verba
Duration: 0:20
Year: 1969

The Dreams of Centenarians

The characters of Verba’s movie are at least one hundred years old; they were born in the 19th century and are living in the same ancient spaces. They share their memories in front of the camera; they speak about their youth, romantic relationships and hardships they have survived. They shed some tears, celebrate birthdays with many beloved family members and even become entangled in some comical situations. At the same time, Verba includes some shots of young faces near the wrinkled centenarians, silently highlighting the ideas of the flow of time and the connection between different generations.

Director: Henrikas Šablevičius
Duration: 0:10
Year: 1973

A Trip Across Misty Meadows

This film continues the tradition of Lithuanian poetic documentary. It details the dismantling of Lithuania’s old railway “Siaurukas” and the construction of its new modern replacement. The old railway and its modern counterpart become the symbol of the clash between the archaic rural Lithuania and Soviet industrialization. The film was often considered as an expression of the archetypes of Lithuanian character. 

Director: Viktoras Starošas
Duration: 0:21
Year: 1962

Cheer Up, Virginijus

The film about the city of Naujoji Akmenė is regarded as one of the first Lithuanian attempts to liberate itself from the stereotypes of the Soviet documentary. Even though the remnants of the “Socialist prosperity” are clearly perceptible in the movie, the process of directing is obtaining more freedom: the voiceover is losing its canonization, and the power of the narrator is given to the main character, a small child Virginijus.

Director: Viktoras Starošas
Duration: 0:30
Year: 1978

Love the Headmistress

The story about the director of the Vilnius Children's Home Nr. 1, an award-winning teacher named Viktorija Kaupelienė and her co-workers reveal a theme that was rather taboo in Soviet cinema, which were children that had been taken from their parents or abused. One can hear the uneasiness that is indirectly formulated in the questions about the situation of problem families, which did not fit the official reports very well. However it is not only social problems that the director was concerned with, but the stories of the children of the home and the experiences of the women that could be said to be working as mothers at the children's home.

Director: Henrikas Šablevičius
Duration: 0:15
Year: 1968

Reflections

“Reflections” is a film by Henrikas Šablevičius that was made for Lithuanian Television. It is a surrealist etude that doesn't have a clear narrative, and is courageous in the context of Lithuanian cinema at the time. The film was banned and put on the shelf for almost twenty years. H. Šablevičius used the work of forgotten graphic artist Stasys Krasauskas. In the conditional spaces of the film, he creates a story about the dual character of a man, the search for himself, his liberation and his life with the past. 

Director: Robertas Verba
Duration: 0:20
Year: 1965

The Old Man and the Land

This film is Robertas Verba’s directorial debut. According to film critic Laimonas Tapinas, “it rarely happens that the first film is successful [...] and it is even more unusual a phenomenon that the first film changes trends in cinematography. Verba’s first film “The Old Man and the Land” had exactly that kind of influence.” As film critic Živilė Pipinytė puts it, “this film was the “ice-breaker” who broke through the ice of Soviet ideology to form the peculiar stylistics of Lithuanian documentary film.” The hero of the film is the bright Lithuanian villager Anupras whose archaic worldview becomes a symbol of the ethno-cultural Lithuanian identity that was often opposed to the identity constructed by the Soviet propaganda. 

Director: ALMANTAS GRIKEVIČIUS
Duration: 0:10
Year: 1973

Off Gauge Temperature

The focus of Grikevičius’s film is Tomas Petreikis, a senior machine constructor of Dzeržinkis’s factory in Kaunas. Instead of creating a conjunctural narrative about a hero of Socialist work ethic who exceeds the norms of production, the director depicts another part of his personality. During his leisure time, Tomas is a ballroom dancer, teacher and a judge in competitions. “Construction and dance? No, they have nothing in common”, Petreikis replies to a journalist’s question. However, the movie is rich in parallels which reveal the precision of both the constructor and dancer; his pursuit not only to control the machines perfectly but also to be a master in teaching ballroom dance pairs composes quite a different view than is claimed by himself.

Director: Edmundas Zubavičius
Duration: 0:10
Year: 1978

No Foe Can Scare Us

In the feuilleton of the director Zubavičius, we observe the absurd reality; it unfolds in the practice of reacting to an imitated nuclear attack of “an enemy behind the border”. The characters of the film are the inhabitants of a small village in Samogitia. They are participating in civil protection exercises and preparing for a civil defence competition. However, although the danger of a new war has been escalated and the civil protection exercises have been organized regularly, apparently no one has taken the danger seriously for a long time now.

Director: Edmundas Zubavičius
Duration: 0:09
Year: 1979

Sensitivity as Bread

The focus of attention in one of the earliest films by a highly prolific documentary director Edmundas Zubavičius is a veterinary clinic in Kaunas; the observation of its daily routine reveals the longing for human sympathy as if yearning for a prayer. Quite a sophisticated relation between the visual and the sound is outweighed by the junctions of poetic film language and realistic shots. They invite to contemplate the relationship between nature and man.

Director: Audrius Stonys
Duration: 0:25
Year: 1992

Earth of the Blind

As film director Audrius Stonys puts it himself, “the film came into reality while trying to answer a question: how can one film the invisible?”. The film subtly interweaves together moments of interaction between people, animals and their surroundings. Long shots, absence of words, and meditative images interplay with music, opens up to the viewer a haptic and philosophical realm which is beyond the visible. In 1992 the film received the FELIX Award for the Best European Documentary Film.

Director: Diana ir Kornelijus Matuzevičiai
Duration: 0:20
Year: 1993

Illusions        

This film by Kornelijus and Diana Matuzevičius is a portrait of Lithuanian Jewish writer and literary critic Jokūbas Josadė (Yankev Yosade). The film subtly transcends this individual story and is able to unlock the broader context of Lithuania, which had just regained its independence. The thoughts of a generation that was fading into oblivion, which are portrayed with abstract images, are akin to the way of life of the contemporary person. 

Director: Rimvydas Leipus
Duration: 0:10
Year: 1993

Wanderers of White Time

With this film a cinematographer Rimvydas Leipus made a debut as a documentary film director. By casting its gaze to the periphery of Vilnius, Užupis, the film follows the tradition of the first generation of independent filmmakers. The result is the mute portrayal of a furnace caretaker Jonas Valeiša and a graphic artist Šarūnas Leonavičius.

Director: Algimantas Maceina
Duration: 0:41
Year: 1994

Black Box

In this experimental documentary, film director Algimantas Maceina reveals the theme of the exile of Lithuanian society from a very personal perspective. He films the repatriation of the remains of his grandfather from Siberia to Lithuania. This personal approach to societal tragedy – the genocide caused by the Soviet regime – links personal to collective memory and erases the boundaries between personal film archives and publicly acknowledged films. 

Director: Audrius Stonys
Duration: 0:16
Year: 2001

Alone          

Film is about immeasurable loneliness of child, only loneliness and nothing more. Story was shoot without any manipulation means. Trip to prison, meeting, way home. That’s all. Movie is dealing with ethical problem and how deep into person’s pain we can interfere or a documentary can interfere.

Director: Audrius Stonys
Duration: 0:20
Year: 1995

Antigravitation

With this film, Audrius Stonys continues the theme of man's peripheral experiences. In Earth of the Blind, he tried to "see the unseen" with the help of a mix image and sound, while in Antigravitation using the camera to break the laws of gravity, giving the objective heavenly power of seeing from up above, and getting closer to an unhearthly experience. "How does the world seem from such heights? What keeps man between the heavens and the earth? How does everything seem from the roofs of the churches?" These are the questions that became the impetus for Stonys's film. 

Director: Valdas Navasaitis
Duration: 00:17
Year: 1992

Autumn Snow

"Autumn Snow" (Lith. Rudens sniegas) is an allegorical story about an eternal cycle of nature and life. The camera slowly captures the days in the village, its inhabitants and daily routine: livestock pasturing in the fields, a stray dog and a funeral procession walking towards the cemetery in the distance. Even death fails to disrupt the routine life of the village. And only the first autumn snow symbolically accompanies man during the final moments of his life.

Director: Saulius Beržinis
Duration: 00:31
Year: 1988

The Brick Flag

"The Brick Flag" (Lith. Vėliava iš plytų) is a documentary about Soviet army private Artūras Sakalauskas who, having grown tired of constant humiliation, shot his fellow soldiers in a train carriage in February 1987. Even though the film traces the tragic event, the psychological portrait of the defendant is placed at the centre. By looking intently inside the young man, the director poses a question, what had actually happened that such a fatal, life-changing decision was made.

Director: Henrikas Šablevičius
Duration: 00:17
Year: 1988

We Were at Our Own Field

"We Were at Our Own Field" (Lith. Pabuvam savam lauki) is a symbolic memory of the Lithuanian identity uprooted from the spaces of the old villages. Once a year, the inhabitants of the village destroyed during the Soviet times gather in the field where their homes once stood. They meet, visit the graves of their relatives, have a festive lunch and, while walking over the bare ground, see their past: the images of every well and blooming cherry are still vividly imprinted in their memories.

Director: Janina Lapinskaitė
Duration: 0:24
Year: 1997

Venus with a Cat

Nadia, Teresė and Ramutė are the three heroines of this documentary. Although they are very different, they are united by their unusual work - for decades they have been making a living by posing for artists. For Janina Lapinskaite, it is not the exotic profession that is important, but the stories that have marked these women's bodies over time. The heroines of the film talk openly about their choice of work, their colourful, albeit difficult past, and their equally difficult present - they bare not only their bodies, but also their souls to the camera.

Director: Diana and Kornelijus Matuzevičiai
Duration: 0:26
Year: 2001

A Local         

Hilda Spalviene, a resident of Šakininkai village, is a German from Klaipėda region. The cheerful old woman, who draws a cigarette with a mouthpiece, recalls her life: before the war she lived in Germany with her husband, after the war she was exiled to Siberia. Later, she was able to go back to Germany, but she returned to Šakininkai - to the land of her parents. Although the film focuses on Hilda's story, it also subtly invites us to consider the issues of multiethnicity and national identity of the inhabitants of Klaipėda Region. Hilda, who speaks with an accent, stubbornly calls herself a local: she was born here and is ready to spend her last days here.