Lithuanian films continue successful year of exposure
- Poland’s New Horizons festival to feature focus on Lithuania
This year, one of Poland’s biggest film festivals- the 15th T-Mobile New Horizons film festival, which opened in Wrocław yesterday- will feature a special focus on Lithuanian films. The programme includes 30 features from 1959 to 2015 and presents the country’s progression through the Soviet period, towards its pursuit of independence and into its recent period of sovereignty.
Key to the programme is a retrospective of work by filmmaker Šarūnas Bartas. Nine of his films will be shown, including The House (1997), Eastern Drift [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (2010) and his latest Peace to Us in Our Dreams [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sharunas Bartas
film profile], which premiered in the Director’s Fortnight section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Other films in the New Horizons programme will include The Fact (1980) -which is still the only Lithuanian film to enter the main programme of the Cannes Film Festival- and Feelings (1970), a drama hailed as the best Lithuanian feature film of all time by national film critics. More modern fare will include recent Lithuanian festival hit, The Gambler [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ignas Jonynas
film profile] (2013), directed by Ignas Jonynas.
“The festival draws over 600 professionals from the film industry each year,” says Rolandas Kvietkauskas, the director of the Lithuanian Film Centre (LFC). “Participation in such events by the Lithuanian filmmakers promotes the name of our country and opens up opportunities to make international contacts and to start co-production projects with neighbouring countries.”
The programme takes place in a year in which numerous festivals across Poland have featured Lithuanian films, with the recent edition of the Krakow Film Festival hosting a spotlight on Lithuanian documentary.
The focus on Lithuania at the T-Mobile New Horizons film festival was organised by the Lithuanian Film Centre in cooperation with the Lithuanian Embassy in Poland.
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