Lithuanian Short Film Premieres

The filmmakers featured in the Lithuanian short film programme explore and push the boundaries of documentary cinema: the films navigate between personal narratives and cultural history, the documentation of reality and imagination, the observing camera and the aesthetics of visual play. In “ Preila Project” by artists Ignė Narbutaitė and Ieva Kotryna Ski, childhood memories, archival material, and the detective-like story of the search for secret amber room serve as a starting point for a playful reexamination of community and the creation of myths. Azerbaijani artist Malak Bayramli also turns to her own history in her graduation project at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, “Road Comes into View (Nomads Memory)”: by observing the Azerbaijani landscape and drawing on oral narratives and songs, she connects herself to her inherited nomadic identity. Rusnė Gocentaitė’s “The Game,” created in collaboration with the Pasteur Institute in Paris, transposes the experience of migration into the digital realm. Here, the rules of the video game and the movement through the Balkan Corridor—one of the main migration routes to the European Union—begin to mirror one another. Viviana Almas, who lives and works in the United Kingdom, invites viewers on a journey through a post-apocalyptic landscape and a search for a vanished past and culture in her work “Whenever I Go There” filmed with an analog camera. In artist Paulius Šliaupa’s “Undercurrents”, movement and myths also become the film’s subject matter: the camera, gliding over Hanoi, transforms fragments of everyday life into a sensory, fairy-tale-like story about the relationship between humans and nature in a city in flux. The works presented in the program also blur the line between movie theaters and galleries: some were created as video installations and adapted for the big screen; others are intended for the cinema but retain a structure that allows them to be exhibited in a gallery. This permeability of boundaries is also evident in the creators’ own experiences: they seek out themes while traveling, go abroad to study and create, or come to Lithuania, and in their films, personal stories and memories become a way to connect with other places and cultures.

Preilos projektas
Preila Project

“Preila Project” is set in a quiet Lithuanian seaside resort, where threads of memory, history, and imagination intersect. One of them is contemporary images of the resort, which are fragmented narratives of rest, boredom, and escape to the periphery. The other thread is historical, going back to 1998, when a treasure hunt unfolded in Preila. At the time, it was speculated that it could be the Amber Room, which was lost during the Second World War and hailed as the eighth wonder of the world. The third thread draws on overheard stories, newspaper clippings, and radio announcements, thus blurring the line between fiction and documentary. Combining video, sound, and found materials, “Preila Project” becomes an atmospheric exploration of place, where fantasy and reality, past and present, melt together.

Ieva Kotryna Ski is an artist based in Paris. She works with documentary film, text, and audiovisual installations.

Ignė Narbutaitė is a video artist and film and video editor based in Vilnius. She edits feature films, documentaries, artist videos, music videos, and television documentaries.

Žaidimas
The Game

Transformed into a non-human character, the protagonist enters a digital space – a territory in constant transformation, where avatars are imposed upon the players. Drawing on video game imagery, the film explores the parallels between events along the Balkan corridor and the logic of virtual worlds.

Rusnė Gocentaitė lives and studies in Paris. Archival images and found materials play a significant role in the artist’s work, and she develops her projects on the basis of academic research and in collaboration with scholars from various fields. She has worked with several academic institutions, including the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Pasteur Institute. Her artistic practice primarily encompasses video art, installation and expanded cinema.

Klajojantys prisiminimai
The Road Comes Into View 

Moving between personal experience and collective memory, the film becomes an intimate inquiry into inherrited a history of nomad’s life and displacement. Rather than reconstructing the past, it listens to what remains: in the land, in the silences, and in the stories carried across generations.

Malak Bayramli is an Azerbaijani filmmaker, photographer, and artist-researcher working across documentary cinema and audiovisual art. She holds an MA in Photography and Media Art from Vilnius Academy of Arts and has studied experimental cinema at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.

Šiandiena priklauso nedaugeliui, o rytojus – niekam
Whenever I Go There

In a post-apocalyptic world, the last two people left on Earth travel through cities, collecting remnants of a vanished past. The film is accompanied by W. S. Merwin’s poem “Whenever I Go There.”

Viviana Almas is a Lithuanian artist based in London currently working with photography and film whose work explores collective memory and time. Blending fiction and documentary her practice creates new worlds without answers.

Tėkmė
Undercurrents

Undercurrents is a film inspired by myth and the enduring relationship between people and nature on the outskirts of Hanoi. The camera glides above dark waters, following swimmers, fishermen, fires, and rituals that persist within an expanding urban landscape. Karaoke, street vendors, insects, machinery, old songs, and distant gongs merge into a flowing soundscape.  Undercurrents transforms everyday encounters into a sensory, fairy-tale-like narrative, revealing the river and surrounding landscape as active forces shaping human lives.

Paulius Šliaupa is an artist who works with various mediums, ranging from video installations and experimental films to painting. Atmospheric imagery, sound, and poetic energy intertwine to create sensory narratives inspired by poetic cinema, magical realism, and science fiction.